


The Sovereigns of the Republic

by LaEmperatrizMariana



Series: The Breastforce Doesn't Work that Way. [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alt-Mode Sexual Interfacing, Bukkake, Cunnilingus, Domesticated Cybertronians, Double Penetration, Dubious Consent, Fake Xeno, Hemipenis, Major Character Undeath, Oral Sex, Other, Recreational Drug Use, Sex Toys, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-09-24 13:20:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 35,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaEmperatrizMariana/pseuds/LaEmperatrizMariana
Summary: Deathcobra, a serious and steadfast warrior who has overcome a hard past, is caught between doing the right thing and helping those whom he cares about. Unfortunately, these sides don't often align with each other, leaving him figuratively caught in the middle. By chance, he discovers an ancient relic which he believes will bring harmony to his current situation. But before he has a chance to celebrate the discovery and other wonderful news, he is summoned by his employer to leave Cybertron and assist with illegal business, which only complicates things for him.





	1. The Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> **Not beta read.**  
> 
> This is a sequel to [The Titty Penguin](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6922507) and the events occur a few weeks before [The City of Wonder](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7042765/chapters/16017973) begins.
> 
> This story should've been written and completed months ago, but I had a terrible case of writer's block. Not to mention, it underwent massive changes including switching the protagonist and a complete overhaul of the plot due to my compulsion to eliminate/reduce plot holes. Unlike most of my other works, where I finish the fanfic before posting, this one is more like a standard fanfic. (Complete with sporadic and unannounced updates until it's completed. But rest assured, I know how it's supposed to end. It's a question of when I'd get there. XD)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathcobra is in his home city-state of Tyrest for business and visiting relatives. A long time client offers him a proposal which he gladly accepts, but at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is a challenge because it's difficult for me to write porn. I'm not a descriptive writer. And it feels "unoriginal" when I attempt to write it myself, unless I make it sort of random. In fact, most of it is SFW except for a couple of chapters. If you're only here for the smut, then check out the Author's Notes at the end, because I've taken the liberty to link to the smut chapters, just in case you want to skip all the SFW nonsense. XD

    A green helicopter silently flew closer to the Sea of Rust. Near the Kalisian shore, there were three buildings next to each other. It was the base camp of two maintenance workers, who worked for the geothermal energy plant in Kalis. Their responsibility was to monitor the pipes in the hot springs. The helicopter landed at the camp and transformed. He approached the tidier house and rang the doorbell.

    The door was answered by the homeowner, a red fire tank. Smiling, the red fire tank said, “Deathcobra, good to see you. Please, come in. It’s too late for you to be wandering around like this.” He grabbed Deathcobra by the arm and pulled him inside. Before Deathcobra had the chance to speak, the fire tank said, “My subordinate is growing wary of our interactions. I think it’s safer to leave in the morning, so he wouldn’t get suspicious.”

    “Hold on Flame,” said Deathcobra, “let me text my carrier.”

    Flame looked at what Deathcobra was writing. He basically told his carrier that his friend said it’s too dangerous to fly at night, so he offered him a place to stay for the night. Although their relationship was initially only business-related, Flame and Deathcobra had slowly become friends.

    Satisfied, Flame handed Deathcobra an envelope from his subspace. Deathcobra opened it and saw a large wad of cash. He counted it and seeing that it was correct, he said, “Thank you.”

    “No, thank you for providing me with these luxurious imported goods,” replied Flame. “I have something I want to show you. It’s in my bedroom.” Noticing Deathcobra’s naughty grin, Flame added, “It’s not what you think. In fact, it’s something better.”

    Both of them climbed up the stairs. There was a crude map and various papers spread all over his bed. Seeing his friend’s confusion, he explained, “I have located the temple complex of Vector Sigma. Ever since I located these anomalies on the western shore, I worked on experimental sonar equipment to figure out what these anomalies could be. This morning, I compiled the new data and printed up this map. Then I compared it to these old illustrations of the temple.”

    Flame opened an old book and showed Deathcobra the artist’s rendition, in comparison to the map. Both were very similar. The temple was very large, easily 5 times the size of the Primal Basilica in Iacon. Flame was not the first to discover the lost temple’s whereabouts. For years, many have claimed to have located it, only to never return once they headed out into the High Seas.

    “Have you told Tyrest University about this?” asked Deathcobra. The university in the neighboring city-state of Tyrest, where Deathcobra was from, was currently the only prestigious higher-education institution in all of Cybertron. (But this was after many of the other colleges were destroyed during the war. Thanks to the Tyrest Accord making Tyrest and Kalis combat-free zones, the humble university was unharmed and benefited from funding.

    “Of course not, “replied Flame, “I need to be certain it’s there. The university knows better than to waste precious resources going after an assumption. I’m sure they’d pay me handsomely for such a find. I still haven’t figured out where the entrance is at. I’ve only identified what seems to be a massive burial chamber. For this I need your help.”

    Frowning, Deathcobra said, “Flame, I’d love to tell my associates about this, but I’ve not been able to get in contact with them. Every time I’ve called, the phone is disconnected.”

    “How sweet, but I wasn’t planning on contracting them,” said Flame. He moved a few papers aside and revealed a creepy-looking grimoire. “I found this strange book hidden inside a couch you brought for me. It’s a necromantic text. Deathcobra, I plan on using it to revive the corpses in the burial chamber. It’s the fastest way I can get workers to the area. But I still need your help.”

    Uncomfortable, Deathcobra said, “I don’t think that’s a good plan.”

    “Why not?” asked Flame.

    “Like you get grossed out easily,” said Deathcobra, “I can’t imagine you touching and rearranging those corpses. I’m sure as hell not going to do it either.”

    Smiling, Flame said, “I’m not going to touch anything. There’s a type of necromancy where you have to say something and the corpses get brought back to life. No touching whatsoever. But that requires me to engrave my vocalizer with a particular sigil. All I need help in is holding the tongs while I do the engraving. You came just in time.”

    Flame opened a drawer on the nightstand and pulled out a pair of tongs. They were glowing violet at the tips. He got in front of the mirror and inserted the tongs into his neck; they phased right through. He pulled out the vocalizer and handed it with the tongs to Deathcobra. As soon as he grabbed it, Flame applied a numbing cream onto the site and began engraving it with a special needle. Since the sigil was easy to write, it didn’t take long for him to finish. He got the tongs back from Deathcobra and slowly returned the vocalizer back into his neck.

    “Are you okay?” asked Deathcobra.

    Flame shook his head. He was unable to speak because his vocalizer was numb. He wrote on a piece of paper, “I’m fine. The first phrase I say will be what activates the sigil, so I want to think of something memorable. But I have nothing in mind right now.”

    “Maybe you can come up with something after dinner,” said Deathcobra, he handed him the paper, “just tell me what you want and how you like it.” After reading what he wanted, both of them went to the kitchen and made a small dinner, which they shared. After a while, Deathcobra spoke, “Listen, not sure how familiar you are with the local folklore, but there’s a chance that the spark containment units of the ancient city guardians – King and Kaiser, could be there too. I’ll be more than willing to help you find them, although I have a personal interest in them. I want to use them to make combiners so that could grant the rest of my associates a sort of citizenship for the area.”

    Flame was in agreement. After all, Deathcobra had been a good friend to him, it was the least he could do. Not to mention, it would put Deahcobra’s associates into debt with him for giving them a reason to do business in the area. Flame remembered Deathcobra mention it several times before.

    Since he was staying the night, Flame decided they should take advantage of it and interface. It had been a while since both of them had the time to do so. Wrapping his arms around Deathcobra’s neck, Flame whispered, “Come and get me, big boy.”

    Deathcobra’s eyes widened and asked, “Did you just say ‘Come and get me, big boy’?”

    Flame growled. “Damn. I forgot, but at least you caught that, otherwise I’d be screwed; the unpleasant way, I mean.” Shrugging it off, they continued as normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut chapter links (as promised):
> 
>   * [Deathcobra/Flame](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/24039717) (up next, actually)  
> 
>   * [Deathsaurus/Esmeral](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/24810822)  
> 
>   * [Tyrest/Legislators](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/34809173)  
> 
>   * [Esmeral/Lyzack](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/30416769)  
> 
>   * [Deathsaurus/Esmeral](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/30419658) (again, because why not?)  
> 
> 



	2. The Snake Charmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathcobra/Flame porn chapter that I wasn't going to add but now I was in the mood. ~~I'm so sorry.~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A random birthday gift for myself. XD

    Neither Flame nor Deathcobra remembered exactly what made their relationship more intimate. As far as Flame was concerned, he was always lonely and in need of company. Deathcobra seemed to be the only one who understood him and showed appreciation. Deathcobra, as much as he hated to admit, agreed because Flame felt easy but his motives changed over time. As pompous as Flame was, he was interesting to talk to because he was knowledgeable and showed great passion for the things he loved, mainly science and interior design.

    With the doors locked, the lights dimmed, and Cobrabreast curled up in the living room, they were continuing their routine as normal. What is considered "normal" is subjective. For Deathcobra and Flame, it meant Flame getting excited about Deathcobra's hemi-spike. (This was the reason Deathcobra found Flame so easy. It was a somewhat common anatomical element among cold-blooded Cybertronians.) His expression was always the same; his face lit up with an indescribable joy and his eyes sparkled almost like a flickering light. Greedy, Flame was more than eager to stroke both of Deathcobra's spikes. Deathcobra grimaced and bit his lip. Flame had unusually soft hands and his gentle grip on his throbbing spikes felt good. Deathcobra decided to pour some more lubricant on Flame's hands, making them more slippery and causing him to stroke more vigorously as he tried not to have the spikes slip from his hands.

    Cumming from the hand-job alone, was a particular dilemma for Deathcobra. It had happened many times before and always embarrassing because then Flame would tease him about it. Meanwhile, Flame had his gaze fixated on both spikes, unsure which spike he wanted to suck first. He often rotated but it had been so long since they last interfaced, he forgot. Taking a gamble, Flame tried to shove both of them in his mouth.

    Deathcobra's eyes widened. As much as he hated to admit, Flame deep-throating a single spike terrified him. Flame had very sharp teeth. Tanks with teeth like his, could easily bite off other mechs' external plating, which was harder than genital or faceplating. Even though he was confident that Flame would never hurt him, the risk still existed and now only doubled because he shoved both spikes in his mouth. Moving back slightly, he said, "Holy scrap, Flame! I know you love my spikes but I wasn't expecting you to be so damned thirsty!

    Flame moaned in response as he continued to lick both spikes. He had no idea what he was thinking either. He was too embarrassed to remove both from his mouth. They were so large, he almost choked but stopped himself from doing so. Taking a bit of a gamble, he nibbled on one of the spikes causing Deathcobra to cum inside Flame's mouth. At that, Flame began to cough as Deathcobra squirted the rest of his load on Flame's face. Deathcobra didn't like to make such a mess (because Flame would make him clean up) but something about covering Flame, a princely-looking mech, turned him on more.

    He helped Flame get up, as Flame went to the bathroom to clean up. Deathcobra got the dirty sheets and put them in the laundry bin before entering the bathroom after Flame. Flame was just finishing rinsing off his mouth. Deathcobra got behind him and whispered, "We should finish in the shower. If I must, I'll reimburse you for the water."

    Flame nodded, his throat still sore from engraving the sigil. However, swallowing a bit of the transfluid did him well, it soothed the engraved site. Flame's eyes widened when he felt his valve drip with excitement the moment both of Deathcobra's spikes touched his aft. Trying to maintain his composure, Flame said with his voice cracking slightly, "Please put your two 100% Authentic Tyrestan snake sausages in me. I beg of you! I can't take it anymore!"

    He couldn't believe the words that came out of his mouth. They made him sound like fool. Embarrassed, he didn't know what to do. That type of bad dialogue would end a session before it would begin.

    "No," said Deathcobra sternly.

    Flame sighed, resigned that he screwed up again.

    "You bit me," added Deathcobra. Since Flame was silly to him, he wasn't bothered by his comments. "A teething little whore like you should be punished."

    He backed away some before slapping Flame's aft twice just too see it jiggle. He grabbed Flame's aft and slipped his fingers in between, teasing his valve and exhaust port. Flame tried to get away from him as soon as he felt the unexpected touch. As soon, as he felt Flame's wet valve, Deathcobra lifted him up and placed him on the bathroom counter. (Practically shoving him in the sink but not really.) He spread Flame's aft and shoved his face into it. With his long serpentine tongue, he parted Flame's valvular folds and stuck his tongue right in.

    Flame squealed. "No no no no!" Deathcobra's long forked tongue creeped him out. He only wanted the spike and the teasing was unbearable.

    Deathcobra knew his tongue made Flame uncomfortable, but his demure squeals were always pleasant to hear. After having his fun, he withdrew his tongue. Flame seemed to relax a bit, which was a perfect time to lick his tight, but quivering exhaust port too. He could only do so briefly, because the last time he tried it, he burned his tongue from Flame overheating while panicked. He picked up Flame off the counter and carried him bridal-style into the shower.

    Deathcobra moved so fast, he injured his back carrying Flame who was nearly twice his weight. He pushed Flame against the wall and turned on the shower as a precaution. The cold water that fell on Flame turned to a scalding vapor the moment it touched his frame. Deathcobra frowned, his spikes would melt inside Flame. He knew he shouldn't have eaten out Flame but he couldn't resist. Flame on the other hand, was hyperventilating. It was torturous to wait for his own body to cool down. He could sense that Deathcobra wanted to mount him but it was too risky. Wanting to break the uncomfortable silence, Flame asked, "You like leaving me hot and bothered, don't you?"

    "Of course not," said Deathcobra, "I can't enjoy you like that or make you my personal pitstop." As soon as he saw that no steam come off of Flame, he entered the cold shower. It made his strained back hurt even more and nearly made him drowsy. Flame spread his legs and aft apart bending over more, as he offered himself to Deathcobra. Taking him up on his offer, Deathcobra inserted both his spikes into Flame; one in his valve and the other in his exhaust port. Flame, like many other Cybertronians, didn't really like having his exhaust port penetrated, but his desire to be stuffed by both spikes at once was so great, he put up with it. It took a moment, for Deathcobra to realize what he had done. He wanted both spikes in Flame's valve but the exhaust port was so tight Deathcobra was conflicted about withdrawing it. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Fraggin' hell, I'm sorry."

    However, he was unable to withdraw the spike because his hips began to move on their own. Flame was too cute and needed to get the daylights pounded out of him. Caught in the fit of passion, Flame turned slightly and locked lips with Deathcobra. Deathcobra continued to thrust into him and came one more time, filling up Flame.

    "You monster!" gasped Flame in a sneering tone, upset and disgusted that Deathcobra had taken his exhaust port virginity.

    Deathcobra smiled and kissed his pouty fire tank on the forehead. After all, Flame was into monsters but was too ashamed to admit it, so Deathcobra took his words as a compliment. He decided to penetrate Flame once more; this time, stuffing his valve with both spikes. Needless to say, Flame was pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like how this comes off as xeno but not really because they're both of the same species. :3
> 
> This is the **exact** reason I decided to make them a couple. Originally, they were just supposed to have a non-intimate business relationship but then I remembered that Flame is the kind of freak who'd go down on a mech with two spikes. And Deathcobra being a snake, he has two spikes so...??? X3
> 
>  **(5 JUNE, 2017) EDIT:** I didn’t think it was possible, but I found a [random post on Tumblr](https://taobaoring.tumblr.com/post/161122459476/what-a-lucky-experience-to-order-with-taobaoring) that perfectly describes the appeal of this ship for me.


	3. Hanging' with some cons I've never seen before.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flame receives an unexpected phone call from an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW warning due to character dialogue.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote the beginning of it on my phone with Google Keep because I didn't have internet access while I had traveled abroad. And when I got home, I listened to Drake's “[Hotline Bling”](https://youtu.be/uxpDa-c-4Mc?t=20s) and the Undertale remix “[Hotland Bling](http://truongasm.com/post/131732761760/audio-version-of-a-new-mashup-based-on-an-easy)”, on repeat to get more inspiration for this random filler chapter. 
> 
> To be honest, even _I_ don't know what's going on (and I wrote this) but still I'm sure this feels more organized than some actual porn acting. Actually, that’s how I’ve felt about this story in general.  >_>

    While Flame and Deathcobra were lying in bed, Flame's phone started to ring. Its cheerful upbeat ringtone instantly made Flame's blood boil because it ruined the mood. (He wanted to snuggle.) Angry, Flame answered the phone calmly, "This is Flame of Kalis, geologist for the Kalisian geothermal energy plant. At this moment I am unable to answer your call, please leave your message after the beep."

    A familiar voice replied, "Dude, you never set up your voicemail because you don't know how to...even after all these years! You're on the phone as we speak and nobody says 'beep', they call it 'tone'."

    "Well 'beep' you then, aft-port," replied Flame, as he was getting ready to hang up, since he figured out the caller's identity. It was an old college friend he met in the Science Academy in Iacon. "Flame, I am finally able to call you and this is how you treat me?" Asked the caller.

    "What the hell happened?" Asked Flame, "Didn't you disappear off the face of Cybertron? I assumed you ended up in an opium den or a cult somewhere because you're too smart to die."

    Meanwhile, Deathcobra wondered whether or not he should leave because the call seemed very private and it was on speakerphone. Deathcobra tried to back away and leave, but Flame reached over and and grabbed a hold of him. Flame wanted him there because if left to his own devices, he'd blow up in rage.

    The caller replied, "I made and sold weapons of mass destruction to organics. Think of it as an unsolicited fundraiser for the Decepticon Cause."

    "Ugh, why would you join the Decepticons?" Asked Flame indignantly, "Megatron, a self-proclaimed king – Ruler of the Decepticons, says that he refuses to eat pussy. A king who doesn't eat pussy is no king at all. Why would I want that type of mech as my leader? Optimus Prime, on the other hand..."

    Remembering how much Flame loved oral, the caller replied, "Oh...I thought you'd understand. The Decepticons allow innovative scientific breakthroughs by throwing morality and ethics to the curb. It's only logical that I join them and I assumed you would too. You love science!"

    "Yeah, but the only reason I became a scientist was because I was chasing sweet, sweet aft that wasn't even there." Sighed Flame as he reminisced about an old crush, who seemed to be interested in science and engineering, but never went to the Science Academy.

    "What a shame," replied the caller. "I mean, the only thing I'm passionate about besides having a good virile penis inside me is science. But sometimes both go hand in hand, take Jhiaxus for example..."

    "Why do you still _like_ that mech?" Scoffed Flame, "He's ugly and blinded one of your sons."

    "If you got dicked down by him you wouldn't care that he's ugly," replied the caller. "How can you call yourself a tank of science if you've never interfaced with Jhiaxus like all the reputable scientists?"

    "Perceptor has never fragged Jhiaxus," said Flame. "I don't think his distinguished older brother, Quark, has fragged him either.

    "Those are pathetic Autobots, that's why," said the caller. "Both are cowards who fear innovation. Neither are reputable or distinguished according to my personal standards, so they don't count."

    "What about Skyfire or Jetfire...whatever he goes by these days?" replied Flame.

    "He got 'iced'," said the caller. "Besides, flyers make terrible scientists. That's an indisputable fact. It's because they're air-headed. They become easily distracted by seeds and grains. That's why grounders like us make the best scientists."

    "Isn't Jhiaxus a flyer?" asked Flame, as he tried to stifle his laughter. 

    "So? I have a weakness for bad mechs...and then there's you," replied the caller, who couldn't think of anything bad that Flame had done. As far as he was concerned, Flame lived in Kalis and didn't involve himself in questionable endeavors.

    “Me?” asked Flame, slightly taken aback by the answer. “Dude, we’re just frag buddies. I’m not your lover like Jhiaxus or any of those large, scary Decepticon mechs you’ve sucked off.”

    “Of course,” replied the caller coldly, “but that doesn’t make you any less of a lover, I hope you realize this. We’ve bonded very intimately together without any sort of business transactions involved, so this what we have together is deeper than just acquaintanceship.”

    Flame moved his other hand close to his mouth and bit his knuckle, “…”

    Sensing the awkward silence, the caller added, "Anyway, let me tell you the personal details I need to share with you that are of extreme importance. I'm currently in Nebulon and I've made good, convenient connections. Soon, I'll be able to space-bridge to Cybertron and more specifically, right into your bedroom. Then, we will have a happy and proper reunion that is long overdue."

    Deathcobra narrowed his eyes.

    "With those lobster claws? I don't think so," replied Flame, who quickly hung up on the caller.

    "Who is that?" asked Deathcobra.

    Afraid of pissing off a snake that could poison him with a single bite, Flame said, "An old friend of mine that disappeared a long time ago, but he's back...I think."

    Realizing that Deathcobra was unsatisfied with the reply Flame leaned over and whispered his name to him. Deathcobra's eyes widened upon hearing the name and he replied with disgust, "Tell that slut, whenever he space-bridges here, that he owes my boss $50k." 

    “Will do…” replied Flame, whose eyes widened after realizing the sum of the debt. “Why does he owe that much anyway?”

    “Should I really be telling an Autobot this?” asked Deathcobra. “It’s Decepticon business.”

    “Please, I want to know,” replied Flame. “I’ll do anything.”

    Deathcobra looked at Flame in the eye and said, “You are clearly an Autobot only in name.”

    “Huh?” Asked Flame, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    Ignoring Deathcobra continued, “Your friend failed to pay back a loan. Apparently, he wanted to help one of his sons named ‘Amp’ and his friends, buy a custom-made ship. The way they were described, they sounded like a typical band of Decepticon mercenaries. My boss thought the transaction was suspicious from the beginning because we couldn’t obtain any information regarding Amp. The records made it seem like he had died or vanished prior to the agreement of the loan. Because your friend had excellent credit, my boss took the risk and accepted to give him a loan. The payments were on time, except for the last one which he never managed to pay. And due to the interest accumulated over the years, it now totals to $50k. Since we couldn’t find Amp’s whereabouts either, we couldn’t charge him for it and the debt wouldn’t have ever gotten to be that large. Does that make sense?”

    “Yeah,” replied Flame. He had met Amp once, and he seemed like a good kid. Flame had wondered if Amp had defected to the Autobots since he appeared to be very soft-hearted and exhibited morality. However, he was also aware that his friend had some close connections to the DJD, a notorious mercenary group known to chase after ex-Decepticons to punish them for defecting. As immoral as his friend was, he would hand over his son to the DJD, even if he resented him, because he was incapable of doing such a thing. For this reason, Flame assumed that Amp was still a Decepticon…at least, if he was still operational. Otherwise, Flame would've known if something terrible had happened.

    Flame noticed that Deathcobra was retracting his crotch-panel and forgotten that he had to uphold his end of the deal. This time, Deathcobra simply offered him his valve since he needed to get that pleasured too. Flame cracked his knuckles and was more than happy to oblige.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The caller is supposed to be Scorponok. I was on the fence about mentioning whether or not they know each other in this AU since this Flame is practically a "harmless civilian" at this point. But I decided to give it a shot anyway. So this basically a minor retcon for this AU, except that I never really developed Flame's college adventures. Which brings me to the point as to why I accepted it; I find it amusing that his college experience is similar to Emirate Xaaron's. (Emirate Xaaron also befriended a tall green mech who was his study buddy at first, and eventual friend, with access to powerful space-bridge technology.)
> 
> And yes, the reason Amp no longer has any current records of himself available is because he changed his name and identity. He goes by Kaon these days, yes Kaon of the DJD. The DJD owe Deathsaurus money but Deathsaurus doesn't know.


	4. Buried at the High Seas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathcobra goes to visit his relatives. Later, an unexpected setback occurs. Fortunately, it was something easily remedied.

    Early the next morning, Deathcobra headed back to Tyrest to wire the payment and visit his carrier. His carrier was an old serpentine jeep who lived in one of the government apartment complexes along with his two other children, their mates, and his grandchildren. (Unlike other places, the government apartment complexes were good, safe places to live.) Since his other children had left for work, and the grandchildren were in school, Deathcobra and his carrier were the only ones there.

    “Have you been able to get in contact with your boss?” asked the carrier.

    “No,” said Deathcobra.

    “I received a random call last night, wanting to speak with you,” said the carrier, “it sounded like a femme. This is her number.” His carrier handed him a random phone number.

    Thinking the random femme was either his boss’ wife or her assistant, Deathcobra returned the call. It was promptly answered by the femme. “How may I help you?”

    “Lyzack!” said Deathcobra, trying to tone down his relief. “Thank Primus. What’s been going on? I’ve been trying to call you guys for weeks. I don’t mind chillin’ with my folks but –”

    “We were sabotaged, the Thunder Arrow blew up weeks ago,” said Lyzack, “We lost everything, including your number! Fortunately, the Empress found your carrier’s phone number on her phone.”

    “I’ll give you my number, get ready,” said Deathcobra, as he waited for Lyzack to get something to write it down in. He sat at the couch and recited the numbers.

    Meanwhile, his carrier stepped into the kitchen, to give him some privacy. As far as he knew, Deathcobra worked for a small independent importing company, which often required him to leave Tyrest.

    Concerned, Lyzack said, “The Emperor is requesting to hold a meeting with everyone in regards to employment. I hope he’s not thinking about laying off anyone because of the catastrophic loss this sabotage has caused. I have to go, I don’t want to waste any more minutes; goodbye.”

    Deathcobra frowned and went to explain the situation to his carrier for advice. Hoping for the best, his carrier reassured him that if the worst occurred, he’d easily be able to find a job in Tyrest. For some reason, his carrier’s reassuring words upset him. The Destrons were Decepticon smugglers who were investigated multiple times by the Tyrest Accord enforcers and deputies. If Deathcobra went to a job placement agency, there was a chance he’d be detained and questioned. (This was the only legal way to get employment in Tyrest and Kalis, as stated in the Tyrest Accord.) Not knowing what to do, he told his carrier, “Pray for me.”

    Knowing he had to wait for Deathsaurus to call him, Deathcobra decided to call Flame to let him know he’d be available to assist him with his dig. Flame was surprised by his call and accepted his offer. At that, Deathcobra headed back to Kalis. It was noon and Flame’s subordinate had left for his smoke break. Deathcobra saw the time and wanted to smoke too, but he knew Flame wouldn’t appreciate it so he abstained from it.

    They met at Flame’s house, where Flame drove them to the site in question. Deathcobra looked at the map as they headed there. Concerned with his friend’s lack of small talk, Flame asked, “Is something wrong?”

    Uncomfortable, Deathcobra decided he had no choice but to be frank with him. “I just found out that someone sabotaged by boss. They blew up our ship and we lost the inventory. We had to pay out of pocket to recompense the clients and it seems it’s nearly bankrupted us.”

    “I see,” said Flame, “tell you what. Even if that combiner idea doesn’t pan out, I can see if I can put a good word for you at the plant. If things go well, you’d get to be my subordinate instead of that lazy foreigner.”

    “That’s a generous offer, but I don’t have a degree in geology,” said Deathcobra.

    “You probably know more about rocks than my subordinate from all of our random conversations we’ve had over the years,” said Flame. “As for the degree, that can be arranged. I’ve heard the university has an excellent online program and I’m sure the plant wouldn’t mind helping you get scholarships.”

    They arrived at the site and began to dig. Flame was correct in the fact that Deathcobra had learned enough about his field and occupation. Both of them worked together and dug a reasonably sized hole until they uncovered a door. However, something was very wrong. Deathcobra was filled with dread as Flame decided to open the door and go inside. Without thinking, Deathcobra rushed ahead of Flame and shoved him down the stairs, before being impaled in the chest by a spear. Flame had no chance to react, before he looked up and saw his only friend injured by the trap. Deactivated, the trap went back into the wall and Deathcobra collapsed, rolling down the stairs.

    Flame covered his face. In that moment, he knew nothing could be done, the injury was fatal. But then he remembered his necromantic sigil and now was the time to see if it truly worked. He got next to Deathcobra’s ear and whispered, “Come and get me, big boy…”

    Deathcobra groaned, as he felt his chest painfully repairing itself. Although squeamish, Flame pulled out his first aid kit and attempted to repair Deathcobra. With a confused smirk, Deathcobra thought, “What the hell kind of sparkburn is this? Cobrabreast, what's wrong? Flame, I know you’re a fire tank, but chill. I only tripped, no need to be freaking out on me, worry about Cobrabreast. He's feeling worse than I am.”

    “Glitch you almost died!” growled Flame, trying to hold back his tears from the shock. Had he lingered there for a second longer, he would've died. Especially since the spear would've impaled him in the head, instead of the chest. 

    “What?!” asked Deathcobra who was also confused as to why Flame answered to his thoughts.

    “Actually, you did die,” said Flame, “You and Cobrabreast were stabbed by a spear when a trap was triggered. His injuries are serious and yours were fatal. I tested out that necromancy on you and it obviously worked. So there’s no problem, we just need to be careful.” He hyperventilated. For some reason, he didn’t think archaeology was dangerous even though the majority of archeologists seemed like large fearsome mechs that could double as enforcers or laborers.

    Flame remembered in the text he read, that necromancers could have some kind of telepathic connection with their thralls. But only if the thralls were recently deceased mechs, like Deathcobra. This was because they could recover from their injuries and wouldn’t be undead for very long since they healed until they were fully living again, and the necromancer needed to know where the undead’s loyalties were. Fortunately for Flame, Deathcobra had a good opinion of him. In fact, he seemed to be in love with him but something was preventing Deathcobra from being straightforward about it. His face grew hot, but he hoped it was one of his random hot flashes he got when he was stressed.

    “What’s wrong?” asked Deathcobra, “your face is red.”

    “This setback!” snapped Flame as he helped him up. "Why are you asking me such a silly question? We have to leave and see what can be done about Cobrabreast. There is a local healer nearby that my subordinate goes to. I'm sure he could help him out."

    Flame and Deathcobra left the site, making sure to hide any evidence that it had been tampered with. Hopping in the ship, they hurried to see the healer.


	5. An internal cleansing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get medical help from a chill local healer. Also, mandatory animal companion chapter. :3

    As Flame drove to the healer's house, he noticed Deathcobra writhing in pain. Concerned, he asked, “What's wrong?”

    “My plating,” he gasped, “it burns.” It began to burn after they exited the site, but at this point, the pain was unbearable.

    Flame reached to the backseat and threw a towel at him. Deathcobra covered up and felt instant relief. Flame frowned, remembering that the undead were photosensitive. Fortunately, most local folk healers usually worked in darker environments. Despite having one of the best healthcare systems available, the majority of the population had a strong preference for traditional medicine – which was basically potent herbal potions and teas. Flame initially dismissed these customs as superstition, having been raised in the metropolis of Iacon. But when he was taken to a healer, by Deathcobra for what he thought was incurable back pain, he believed.

    They entered the the healer's house, located in a nearby village. Deathcobra got up, still covered by the towel and ran to the door. Flame went to park his ship and as he got out, he caught a whiff of the herb. Its revolting smell made him feel as if his insides were being tied in knots; Flame wanted to throw up. While he could leave Deathcobra there, it felt wrong to abandon his only friend. Taking a deep breath, Flame temporarily disabled his olfactory sensors and stood next to Deathcobra who had knocked on the door.

    The healer answered the door. He was a minibot that reached past their knees. He invited them inside and Deathcobra tried to explain the situation.

    Seeing that the minibot healer was higher than a metrotitan, Flame interrupted Deathcobra and said, “What my friend says is that we decided to go explore some ruins. There, he and his symbiotic droid got impaled by one of the traps. Needless to say, my friend died and the droid was going to go on after him. Since I just learned death whisperer necromancy, I brought him back from the dead. But the thing is, he and his droid are still sick. So I was wondering if you could help us.”

    Holding up his hand, the minibot said, “Say no more.” He went on and began to assess Cobrabreast first, since Deathcobra had been pleading for him. Fortunately, his injuries were repairable and after drugging him, the healer began to repair his wounds.

    As they observed, Deathcobra got close to Flame and said, “I think it's best if we went outside and waited for a bit. I know you're sensitive to the smoke.”

    After letting the healer know, they sat under a shaded tree that was in front of the house. Smiling, Deathcobra said to Flame, “Have I ever told you that I love you?”

    “Only when we 'face, why?” inquired Flame, “Did you breathe in too much of the ganja?”

    “Nah,” chuckled Deathcobra, “I was just thinking about it since I died and never got a chance to tell you before. But I guess I should count myself lucky for getting a second chance. I'll admit, I was nervous not because you're my client, but because I'm not anywhere close to your league. I'm a delinquent from the slums of Tyrest and molded by the crime. You? You're descended from great war generals of Iacon and raised in the finest of luxuries. We don't belong together.”

    “Deathcobra,” whispered Flame, “I'm an ethnic Kalisian, which is no different than a Tyrestan except by faction and how we cook beans with rice. Don't believe me? I have my documents and can prove it to you. It's a miracle I even have them, since my adoptive parents didn't destroy them like they destroyed their sham of a marriage. You know, I had grown up thinking I was illegitimate. But no, it was much worse. They probably dropped thousands on me just to pretend that they loved each other so much they made me. Sometimes I wonder if I was actually orphaned. I wouldn't be surprised if I had gotten kidnapped. That kind of terrible thing happened frequently back then.”

    Flame clutched his chest. It was the first time, he had confessed his horrible secret to anyone. He felt numb and disgusted for saying it to Deathcobra, even though he was in his most trustworthy state. Nonetheless, this was the actual reason he moved to Kalis. Ignorant, he thought he would find happiness being reunited with his people but he was wrong – always feeling out of place and disoriented by the culture shock. Not to mention, he found the smell of the herb disgusting. The herb was the most important crop and almost everything revolved around its use. For this reason, Flame understood why the chief justice, author of the Tyrest Accord, would never criminalize it. If he did, the accord wouldn't have lasted because of the lack of cooperation, and the two city-states would plunge into chaos. He had heard rumors that the chief justice was a native Tyrestan but he was unsure. Tyrest was in a worse state of crime than Kalis before the Tyrest Accord was approved. For a Tyrestan to have been given an opportunity to study law at a prestigious university, was unlikely. But at the same time, Flame looked at himself; there was also no way a Kalisian would've graduated from Iacon's prestigious Science Academy and yet he did.

    Flame was so lost in his introspection, that he failed to notice Deathcobra staring at him.Thinking about it, perhaps Flame was right; the herb had affected Deathcobra too but that wouldn’t explain he felt he had grown closer to him. Unfortunately, Deathcobra was a mech with a serious disposition and couldn’t think of a way to cheer up Flame. (Flame was the jokester in their relationship.)

    Thinking fast, Deathcobra said, “But after this healer patches us up, we can go back and make it big with the discovery. Even if what you found isn’t Vector Sigma, the evidence of ruins is significant.”

    “True, because ruins are non-existent here,” replied Flame. “These city-states have been continuously inhabited since – forever by the same people and their descendants. It’s something I noticed right away when I first arrived. In school, when they mentioned Vector Sigma and its cult of worship, they made it seem like a relic from the past. But then again, everything I’ve known about this place before arriving here has been a lie.”

    Deathcobra suddenly got up and went back into the healer’s house. Having a connection Cobrabreast, he knew the repairs were a success because the healer was attempting to awake him. Deathcobra got him and wrapped Cobrabreast around his arm. The healer then helped him get up on the bed and began to assess his damage.

    Meanwhile, Flame was waiting outside and a random domesticated droid approached him with a small dead wild droid in its mouth. The domesticated droid placed it by his feet before hurrying back into the house. Often these domesticated droids went out to hunt for their masters or guests and presented them with gifts. Flame pulled out a handkerchief and picked up the dead droid. He whispered to it, “Come and get me, big boy.”

    At that, the wild droid got up and sniffed at his hand. Although it was panicked at first, Flame noticed it was quickly becoming docile. Looking at it, Flame thought, “I wonder if it can do tricks. Like getting me that coin that fell down that hole.”

    Suddenly, the droid hopped out of his hands and darted away. Thinking that he could only control mechs, Flame shrugged it off and continued to wait for his friend. He had his phone but only a few minutes left in it, so he didn’t want to waste them. He took a deep breath and went inside the healer’s house, to see how Deathcobra was doing.

    The healer saw him and said, “Hey, your friend shouldn’t be alive and yet he is. This is a miracle! I’ve finished repairs but he’s still going to be weak from the blood loss.”

    “That’s okay,” said Flame, “how much do I owe you?”

    “The usual rate,” replied the healer.

    Flame pulled out his wallet and paid him. Suddenly, he felt something crawl up his leg and up his body, making him scream. The healer nearly fell over when he saw the wild droid. From the corner of his eye, Flame saw the droid with something in its mouth. The droid made its way to Flame’s hand and dropped a coin there, before comfortably sitting on his shoulder.

    The healer saw what he had done and gasped, “That’s amazing. I wish my droid brought _me_ money.”

    Flame smiled impressed that the little droid was his thrall too. But also worried because he didn’t say anything and yet the droid knew exactly what he desired. Not wanting to make a big deal, he went to fetch Deathcobra, and bid the healer farewell before leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To them, droids are the random Cybertronian fauna. They come in different shapes and sizes. Like the ones mentioned here were clearly a cat and a[n undead] mouse. 
> 
> Cobrabreast falls into this category too because he's a symbiotic droid. (Meaning their bond is even stronger.) He also functions similarly to a minicon, doubling as a weapon and a power-enhancer for Deathcobra.


	6. Chillin' at room temperature.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flame and Deathcobra decide to go eat at a restaurant, pretending that nothing bad happened when it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though the title of this chapter was originally intended to reference [algor mortis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algor_mortis), it now references ["Chillax" by Farruko ft. Ky-Mani Marley](https://youtu.be/RW6cGXHuhGU) because that song fits the chapter and it sounds like something they hear on the radio.

    Flame helped Deathcobra get back in the ship, because he had thrown a towel over his friend to cover him from the light. Due to the stress of the ordeal, neither had eaten since morning. Finally feeling hungry, Flame asked Deathcobra, "Do you want anything to eat?"

    Deathcobra shrugged. As a reanimated corpse, he didn't feel hungry at all. "Not really. But I can still join you if you like."

    "No problem," said Flame as he headed to Kalis. He wasn't in the mood for cooking, but since he was a strong advocate of treating himself, he wanted to go to a restaurant badly. Specifically, one that went by the name of Smokey's.

    Smokey's was an old restaurant and bar, very popular with the locals. For some reason, all foreigners hated the establishment, except for Flame. (Then again, Flame was an ethnic Kalisian, and had been living there long-enough to practically be considered a local.)  Flame's reason for going to Smokey's was that it would be the last place he'd run into his subordinate, a foreigner. Besides, Smokey's was a dimly-lit restaurant and it wouldn't affect Deathcobra.

    Deathcobra looked over and saw the tiny wild droid curled up on Flame's shoulder. Knowing Flame would freak out over a tiny vermin, Deathcobra said, "Can you pull over? I feel like I want to throw up."

    Concerned, Flame, who was already within city-limits, went into a parking lot. Once parked, Deathcobra said, "You have a wild droid on your shoulder!"

    "I know," replied Flame nonchalantly, "I appreciate the concern, but they're with me."

    The droid looked at Deathcobra, with its tiny eyes wide opened. Upon seeing the sinister violet glow from its eyes, Deathcobra felt shivers go down his spine. He didn't even want to know how Flame found a dead droid which he revived with his necromancy. Sick to his stomach, Deathcobra got out of the ship and threw up behind a nearby bush. Flame sensed his uneasiness. He looked himself in the rear-view mirror, and noticed a violet tinge in his eyes. All he could think of was that this reaffirmed his decision to go to Smokey's because no one there would notice the creepy eye glows. As soon as Deathcobra went back into the ship, Flame continued on his way. 

    Arriving at Smokey's Flame pulled up towards the entrance and urged Deathcobra to go in and wait for him. Before he knew it, the wild droid jumped on him and Flame went to go find a parking spot. Although there was the uncertainty of Cobrabreast wanting to snack, Flame didn't think twice about it before subconsciously ordering both the droid and Deathcobra to leave together. Deathcobra was very aware of that fact as soon as he felt the droid land on him. However, the droid's aura was menacing that even Cobrabreast began to tremble in fear. Deathcobra wasn't alone.

    Random patrons seemed to react him in that same manner. The Kalisians and Tyrestians were cheerful people who greeted each other, whether they'd be friends or strangers. But many seemed to completely ignore Deathcobra or walked faster as soon as they got close to him. Deathcobra's eyes widened and he looked at his reflection on the glass door. His eyes also had that creepy glow. Upset, Deathcobra stood by a corner and waited for Flame to enter. He didn't need to talk, when Flame said to him, "Wait here. I'm going to order takeout. I was thinking of getting you a sparkling's meal, sound good?"

    Deathcobra nodded, "Extra mustard please."

    Flame went to the takeout counter and waited in line, thinking about what to order next. Just then, the door opened and Flame's subordinate entered the restaurant. He was an average-sized blue and white mech, about Flame's height. Unlike, all the other patrons, the mech was high. For this reason, he didn't seem bothered by Deathcobra's presence, just like the healer who had treated him and Cobrabreast. Knowing that Flame had no desire to speak with his subordinate, given their tumultuous relationship, Deathcobra asked, "Yo, aren't you Flame's assistant?"

    "Nah, he's just my supervisor," replied the subordinate. It took him a while to realize who he was talking to, because it appeared his undead aura distracted the subordinate a bit until he heard his voice. "Bruh...you're the mech that 'faces with him, right?"

    Deathcobra crossed his arms ad gave him a stern look. The subordinate wasn't wrong but it was an impolite thing to say publicly. Deathcobra didn't even need to say anything because the answer was an obvious "Yes." 

    Confused, the subordinate asked, "No offense, but why a 'con?"

    "Love knows no factions," replied Deathcobra. "Besides, who wouldn't want a mech that does his job like he's supposed to? It gives him life. And what he says about you, you're a slacker; reminds me of another blue and white mech I know and work with. He's always coming up with pathetic excuses to not do his job. I bet you do the same. But let me tell you a little secret that I know you'd appreciate."

    The subordinate leaned closer to Deathcobra. Smiling, Deathcobra whispered, "Stop trying to be someone you're not. No matter how much herb you smoke, you're never gonna be a native like me. Even now, I sense your discomfort. It's the 'rustic' atmosphere of the restaurant that gets to you, just like all the other foreigners. They see it 'dirty' and possibly 'unhygienic'. Me? I see it like my carrier's kitchen before the Tyrest Accord renovations. It brings me a sense of nostalgia of something that we'd all live through, except for you. This restaurant has also been around for ages and Kalisians have fond memories of going to brunch here after religious services."

    "So should I go eat somewhere else?" asked the subordinate, completely missing the point like he missed seeing Flame standing a few meters behind Deathcobra.

    "I don't know," replied Deathcobra, "If you just want to eat here to feel like a real native, you're not going to like it because your subconscious will nag you for being a fraud. If you want to eat here because it seems like a popular place to go, then it's no big deal. For the latter, I suggest the breaded nuggets or any of the deep-fried vegetables. I can guarantee that you'd love the appetizers because everyone does. The other food takes some getting used to."

    "Thanks," smiled the subordinate as he entered the restaurant. He was greeted by a couple of his friends who had been waiting for him.

    Deathcobra observed him for a bit. The subordinate didn't seem like a bad mech to him. He turned around and saw Flame approach him with a receipt. Flame noticed that Deathcobra appeared a little odd. Rather than ask, he attempted to read his mind. Realizing that Deathcobra distracted his subordinate, Flame said, "The service is fast and we'll be out of here soon." Chuckling he added, "We should really go out on a proper date sometime. Perhaps when we finally celebrate my discovery."

    The cashier called the number on Flame's receipt and Flame handed his receipt to Deathcobra. As Deathcobra went to pick up the order, Flame hurried outside and drove his ship closer to the restaurant. After checking that the order was correct, Deathcobra hurried into the ship. To lighten the mood, Flame turned on the radio and decided to play Tyrestan music because it was more lively than Kalisian music. (To everyone else, all the music sounded the same because of the use of lithophones.)

    Deathcobra got out his drink and put the straw through the lid. Before he took a sip, he offered his drink to Cobrabreast. It was not uncommon for a mech and his symbiotic droid to share food from the same containers. In fact, it was generally seen as common courtesy. Since the traffic was still light, they returned to Flame's house to eat within a few minutes. While they ate, Deathcobra pulled out his phone and texted his carrier that he was planning to stay over at Flame's house for the night. Flame ate his burger slowly as he watched Deathcobra type. The microscopic filaments over his living metal frame rose. He had planned to ask Deathcobra to stay overnight because he wanted to monitor his condition. He was also worried that Deathcobra's family would have many questions about his injuries.

    Unable to take it anymore, Flame asked, "How much do you know?!"

    "Whatever you want," replied Deathcobra as the wild droid, who still accompanied them, squeaked.

    Flame tried his best to calm down. He had become paranoid that his thralls were reading his thoughts, but how else could they act upon his given desires? It didn't take long for him to realize that Deathcobra had wrapped his arm around him, before giving him a kiss on the cheek. Deathcobra's touch was warmer than before. It seemed he was quickly crossing the threshold back into life. It still didn't stop Flame from feeling grossed out that he was kissed by a dead mech.


	7. A compromising situation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathsaurus is weighing in his options.

    Leozack, Esmeral, and Goryu were called to Deathsaurus' office, since the Emperor had something important to discuss. For the past several weeks, Deathsaurus was debating whether or not he should dismiss one of his employees due to the financial problems caused by his old ship, the Thunder Arrow, exploding. Since he was the type to get attached easily to those he liked, he found the decision very difficult. For this reason, he met with his highest-ranking subordinates.

    Meanwhile, Hellbat was leaning against the door trying to listen to their conversation. He also hoped to sway the conversation with his hypnotic powers in case they had chosen to dismiss him. Hellbat feared this outcome since he wasn't very well-liked by many of his peers, especially Leozack, due to his eccentric nature. Unlike many of the others, he had no family to go back home to since they disowned him for becoming a Decepticon.

    Frustrated that their meetings were going nowhere, Leozack said, "Emperor, if you say we have to dismiss one person, why can't we dismiss Hellbat?"

    Upon hearing his name, Hellbat used his abilities to manipulate Goryu, since he wasn't very bright. Goryu turned to Leozack and said, "But Hellbat is useful. He's an outlier with the ability of sonar hypnosis. If we were going to dismiss anyone under _your command_ , I suggest Deathcobra. When was the last time, he's ever helped us? He spends most of his time in Tyrest with his 'client'."

    Deathsaurus looked at Goryu and said, "Perhaps I've not explained his situation to you, but whatever deals he's got going on with that client has been our steady source of income for years. The money he receives is always wired to us on time. Today, I'm supposed to get a notification about our balance because his deposit was approved. I hope you understand."

    Goryu nodded, mostly because he didn't know what Deathsaurus was talking about but he knew he wanted him to agree. 

    Hellbat snarled and hearing some distant footsteps, he got up and walked towards the direction of the footsteps. Turning the corner, he crossed paths with Lyzack, Leozack's [younger] twin sister. Her face lit up and she waved her hand at him, eagerly wanting to tell him something. He whispered, "Hellbat, I was looking for you!"

    "What's up?" he asked.

    "I think I found a temporary solution for our money problems but I'm not sure if everyone will agree with it, that's why I need your help," she replied.

    Looking around anxiously, Hellbat inquired, "Then what is it?"

    "If everyone took a temporary pay cut for about one month, we'll have just enough money to keep us out of debt," said Lyzack. Pulling out her phone's calculator, "I did the math, if you don't believe me. I just need everyone to agree with this and that way none of us will get dismissed."

    Hellbat liked the size of his check but Lyzack was right. After all, her intentions were for it to be a temporary solution until everything returned to normal. Sighing he said, "Who do you want me to hypnotize?"

    "My brother," said Lyzack, "Goryu isn't that good with numbers, so everyone will get suspicious. The emperor and the empress are too powerful. My brother is the only one left and I'm sure if I think it's good, he would too. Wait a minute, I have a better solution. C'mon!" She grabbed Hellbat by the wrist, whispered something to him, and knocked on the door of the meeting room.

    Upon hearing the knock, Esmeral and Leozack recognized it was Lyzack. Concerned, Esmeral got up and opened the door. Lyzack entered the room and approached the emperor, who towered over her. "My emperor, if you need to cut costs that badly, I'll volunteer to have my check withheld."

    "Lyzack no!" cried Leozack.

    At that, Hellbat used the opportunity to implant Lyzack's solution into Leozack's mind, before leaving the area undetected. The last thing he wanted was to be falsely accused with tampering with Lyzack's mind and further annoying Leozack.

    “Wait up, I think it’s better if each of us took a pay cut,” said Leozack, “for the meantime. That way we wouldn’t fire anyone or have someone sacrifice their pay so we could stay afloat.”

    Deathsaurus raised an eyebrow and pulled out his old calculator and a notepad. He did the math and said, “Very well. We’ll do that for the next 3 months. If our fortune changes, then perhaps we’ll reevaluate the situation. I must go inform everybody of the decision.”

    As Deathsaurus left the room, he shot a quick glance at Lyzack before leaving. At that, Lyzack knew that he had figured out her trick but wasn’t upset or offended by it. In fact, he was impressed by it even though her subtlety disappointed him. Esmeral, Leozack, Goryu, and Lyzack left the room, locking the door behind them.

    Deathsaurus went to his office and turned on the microphone. He decided to skip the formalities and tell everyone about the temporary pay cut. As he spoke, Esmeral whispered to Lyzack, “Aww…he figured it out all by himself. Anyway, please inform Deathcobra about the decision. I know he’ll understand but if he has any questions he knows he can ask me or my husband.”

    “Yes my empress,” Lyzack pulled out her phone and texted Deathcobra. However, something felt very wrong but she couldn’t understand. Dismissing her gut-feelings, she texted him anyway and resumed her duties.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some writer's block on this story _again_. Decided to switch it up with focusing on the others. I apologize for the brevity.


	8. Just as planned...sort of?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flame and Deathcobra continue exploring the ruins until they make a couple of significant discoveries.

    The next three days, Flame and Deathcobra were exploring the ruins he had discovered. Aside from the scare of the first day, everything seemed normal as they ventured deeper into the ruins. Flame found a door but it was locked. While he looked around for a key, Deathcobra pulled out his lockpicks and picked at the lock, opening the door. With a smile he said, “And my carrier said nothing good would come out of my thievery.” His smile quickly turned into a horrified gasp.

    Flame, who was examining a clay pot, stopped and looked at Deathcobra. Something was wrong; he could no longer feel any connection to him. Unsure whether or not he was tired, Flame began to sob quietly. Deathcobra, who was paralyzed from what he saw beyond the door, snapped out of it and went to check on Flame. Distraught, Flame couldn’t tell him what was wrong.

    Deathcobra wondered if perhaps Flame noticed what was on the other side; what appeared to be an endless catacomb. After all, he assumed Flame had a connection to the dead now that he was a necromancer. However, Flame’s sadness seemed different but Deathcobra could no longer understand and it frustrated him. They remained together until Flame could muster up a couple words. “Why are you still here?”

    The question caught Deathcobra off-guard. “Didn’t we agree that I’d help you until my boss calls me over because he needs me?”

    “Alright,” said Flame as he pulled out some tissues from his subspace.

    “Wait a minute, is this why you’re upset?” asked Deathcobra, “I know you get sad when you have a realization of your loneliness. Is this what happened?”

    Uncomfortable by the question but understanding that Deathcobra came to the conclusion without mind reading, Flame nodded. Trying to change the subject, Flame asked back, “What do you think happened?”

    “I thought you were crying over skeletons,” said Deathcobra. “You didn’t even look at the door when I opened it and there’s a catacomb inside. I thought you were overwhelmed because you’re going to have bring them back to life to help you dig.”

    Flame went to look inside and saw dozens of mummies within the catacomb. He was both disgusted and intrigued by the finding. Deathcobra noticed deep fissures all over the corpses’ bodies. As if they met their end sliced to pieces, then strung back together for burial. He remembered the old folktales of immoral thieves wanting to steal valuables from a church, only to be brutally murdered by the sentinel droids that protected them. These droids had a particular attack pattern which involved them slicing through thieves in a helical rotation. The marks on their victims’ corpses bore an uncanny resemblance to the Holy Matrix (which made their funerary preparation like a more macabre version of ‘Till All Are One.) However, it was quite rare for the little droids to murder anyone and they would often try to frighten intruders to discourage them. Unprovoked, the droids were sweet and enjoyed the company of priests and parishioners alike.

    As Flame examined the corpses, Deathcobra looked around to see if there were any valuables. He was upset about his pay-cut, just like his coworkers, but understood that it needed to be done. Part of him hoped that he could pawn some of the valuables for extra money, but at the same time felt guilty for being so greedy. Especially, since his culture had a very high reverence for the dead. 

    While Flame was studying the remains, he said to Deathcobra, “I want a new recliner, but with heat-resistant materials. Please let me know if you ever find one, preferably in beige or cream.”

    “What happened to the one I got you a while ago?” asked Deathcobra.

    “Heh…funny story,” said Flame, “so I was taking a nap on it and the phone goes off. Obviously, I got spooked and the fact it was from my supervisor didn’t help. I overheated, so it melted. And I really loved it too. I also want new curtains for my bedroom but I want them in white I want them to be like fine silk or any lightweight semitransparent material.”

    Deathcobra never understood why Flame didn’t want to buy anything in Kalis. Still somewhat connected to his thoughts, Flame added, “You just don’t understand. It’s to show off that I can get excellent imported goods despite the travel restrictions. Not to mention I’m not fond of the local textiles. Everyone loves bright bold colors and colorful patterns, particularly warm reddish tones. But I like plain white and light neutral colors. I guess it’s because they remind me of Iaconian styles.”

    Flame smiled. The connection was still there but it was quickly fading as it flickered away like a dying light-bulb. He pulled out a portable microphone, which he had previously purchased from Deathcobra, and spoke into it saying, “Come and get me, big boy.”

    He nearly lost his balance as he felt the corpses rise from their graves, and face him as they awaited his orders. Before he could even say anything, some of the undead scrambled to look for a key and opened the door to another room, leading deeper into the crypt. Others grabbed random weapons they were buried in, in preparation for the digging. Deathcobra couldn’t help but feel creeped out by the situation. Everything about it felt so wrong. But Flame was pleased and bright-eyed about it. As the undead began to work, Flame sat down on a bench and tapped his hand on it, to offer Deathcobra a seat.

    Deathcobra sat next to him and right away, noticed the perspiration beading all over Flame's face and body. Despite what it looked like, controlling all of those undead thralls was exhausting work. It was difficult to direct them into doing exactly what he wanted, since the undeads' brain modules were practically rusted over. Concerned, Deathcobra reached over and searched through Flame's subspace. Since Deathcobra's intention was to get Flame a water bottle, he did nothing as Deathcobra searched for it until he found it. Flame took a sip and sighed. His lips trembled as he spoke, "I wasn't expecting it to be so difficult."

    "You are controlling an entire team, not just one or two people," said Deathcobra. He reached over and held Flame's hand, but couldn't help but feel disgusted by Flame's actions. Everything about the situation was inherently wrong, but he understood this was the cheapest alternative for undertaking this massive project. He had no right to judge, since he didn't have a more reasonable alternative to present to Flame. Despite it all, it felt nice to sit closely with Flame as they continued to hold hands. 

    As Flame continued to concentrate on controlling his thralls, Deathcobra couldn't help but feel his psychic connection from Flame fading away. He finally understood why Flame was so sad. The entire ordeal was more intimate than any of the interfacing they've ever had with each other. In those few days, it felt as if they bonded more sincerely which each other than all of the years they had as importer and client. Deathcobra grieved in silence as the connection finally faded away. A moment after that occurred a thought came to mind; his parents, before his sire's untimely death, were very close. And neither needed that psychic bond to feel any sort of fulfilling intimacy. The thought of proposing to Flame, like he had been wanting was stronger than ever. Ever since his second chance at life, he had been thinking about it more and more. They've known each other for years and the psychic bond had only proven that they had many things in common.

    Most of the reasons Deathcobra had for not proposing sooner were nothing more than weak, cowardly excuses. The only reasonable one he had was that it was unprofessional for him to pursue a relationship with his client. Thinking about it that was a bad excuse too; he was a smuggler and most of his work was illegal. He was far from a professional, as far as he was concerned, since he was still a delinquent. With that settled, he made up his mind to propose to Flame once the excavation was complete. Flame had too much on his mind and he didn't want to stress him out with a proposal.

    Deathcobra pulled out his phone and looked at the time, it was 8:45 pm! Surprised by the time, he showed Flame the phone. It was time to stop for the day. Flame was annoyed because he still wanted to keep on going but Deathcobra had a reasonable concern. Flame commanded his thralls back to their resting spots and forcefully severed his ties with them. As the undead collapsed back to their lifeless state, Flame shook his head. They both decided to retreat back to Flame's house and have a light dinner before resuming their work the following day.

    And it continued like this for the rest of the week. Deathcobra helping Flame with the excavation and checking the time, forcing Flame to take a break for his own good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I'd be able to mention this anywhere, but Deathcobra's sire was killed in an "ethnic cleansing" massacre because he dared to defend fellow Tyrestans who were targeted. His death was hard on the entire family and it's partially what drove Deathcobra into drugs and delinquency. Fortunately, Deathcobra was able to overcome his addictions with Deathsaurus' and Esmeral's help. (They managed to find and pay for a good therapist. Not to mention his employment with them gave him a sense of purpose and made his carrier very happy since he was no longer "doing bad things". Though he still feels guilt lying about the nature of his job because he's still "doing bad things".)


	9. A proper reunion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathcobra is summoned by Esmeral to return to the Destrons. Before he leaves, Flame gives him a valuable present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter mentions some of the events that occurred during [The Titty Penguin](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6922507).

    The next day, a little past high noon, Deathcobra finally arrived at the excavation site. He had made sure to send Flame a text explaining his absence. His carrier wanted him to go to church with the rest of the family. Although he wasn’t exactly religious, he felt it was important to attend. After all, it was the anniversary of his sire’s death and the service was in memory of him.

    As Deathcobra was about to enter the site when he felt his phone vibrate. Seeing it was Esmeral's number, he answered, “Yes my empress?”

    “Good morning, I think,” said Esmeral, “It’s time.”

    Feeling awful for abandoning Flame, Deathcobra blurted out, “I can’t go today. I’m sorry, it’s the anniversary of my sire’s passing in the Open Season Massacre. I’ll come tomorrow.”

    Esmeral checked the calendar and Deathcobra was correct about the date.

    Busy with his phone call, Deathcobra failed to notice that Flame was standing behind him. Tired, Flame finally spoke, “Go with them. Don’t worry about me, your job is more important.”

    Esmeral overheard Flame and his voice was unfamiliar to her.

    “What’s more, I have a pair of gifts for you to present to your associates,” said Flame as he pulled out two primitive spark containment units. They had several inscriptions in archaic Primal Vernacular.

    “We will see you shortly, call us when you get there,” said Esmeral, “bye.” She hung up.

    Looking at the spark containment units, each one had a name inscribed on it; “King” and “Kaiser”. Deathcobra went pale from the shock, the legends were true but that wasn’t what impressed him. It was the fact Flame offered these two artifacts to him. When Flame agreed to give them to him, Deathcobra thought he was playing. Such a discovery would’ve given Flame the recognition he had always desired.

    “I found them early this morning,” said Flame. “I wanted to message you, but I thought it would be best if I showed them to you when you arrived. Perhaps the rest of your associates can come by and help after you’ve finished your current missions.”

    Without warning, Deathcobra embraced Flame in a tight hug. The sudden move prompted a couple of undead thralls to exit the site, reacting to Flame’s distress. But after Flame calmed down, despite being squeezed tightly by a powerful snake, the thralls quickly retreated to the site. Deathcobra finally pulled away and waved goodbye to Flame as he hurried to the rendezvous site, which was in southwestern Tyrest. He transformed and flew there.

    After an hour, he landed at the site and called his carrier, to let him know that his boss had summoned him. A ground bridge opened up and Deathcobra bid his carrier farewell, before entering it and arriving inside the Warworld.

    He was greeted by Esmeral, who had her arms crossed. Making eye contact, he knew she had suspected insubordination when he initially declined her summons. Before he spoke, she asked, “Deathcobra, was that your amica endura?”

    Suddenly, he remembered the time he briefly described Flame as such. They were in the middle of interfacing when Esmeral had contacted him. At the time, he didn’t want to ruin his appearances by admitting that he was in a relationship with his client. Deathcobra nodded. Besides, it would be logical for him to spend the day with family and loved ones, so the lie was still applicable. However, he suspected that Esmeral overheard Flame mention the gifts, so he had no choice but to come clean.

    “Yes, he’s also the client I’ve been dealing with,” said Deathcobra, “we’ve negotiated for so long, the relationship evolved. This past week, he’s been doing his own amateur archeology and has discovered these ancient spark containment units. I was thinking that perhaps these can be our key to entering Tyrest and Kalis, to do business. These sparks belong to legendary city guardians, it’s in the inscriptions.”

    Esmeral pulled out her com-link and called Deathsaurus. Within moments, Deathsaurus arrived and examined the artifacts. He appeared impressed and said, “These are authentic. They belong in a museum but at the same time it’s wrong to have them imprisoned like this.”

    Deathcobra explained their acquisition and the legend behind them. He also made it clear that his (and Flame’s) intentions were for the Breastforce and Dinoforce to become combiner teams. That way the chief justice, author of the Tyrest Accord, would be forced to grant them citizenship to both city-state and this would give them a light diplomatic immunity of sorts.

    Clasping his hands together, Deathsaurus smiled. “This is better than I had anticipated. I wanted to gather everyone so we could discuss an off-planet transaction. I don’t quite trust the organics who’ve contacted me and I wanted to have extra muscle just in case. But as two combiner teams, we’d be overpowered just in case things go awry.”

    “Esmeral, please call my most loyal client,” said Deathsaurus, “I have a favor to ask of him.”

    As Esmeral left, Deathcobra asked, “Who is this client again? I’m sorry, I’ve got a lot of things on my mind today.”

    “It’s understandable,” replied Deathsaurus, “It’s president Starscream. Not sure if you remember, but he was originally the scientist behind the Combiners Project during the war, before Megatron replaced him with Jhiaxus who ruined everything by going too far. I hope he accepts. This subject has been something touchy for him because it was his dream, which was taken away from him and scrapped up beyond recognition.” Putting his massive hand on Deathcobra’s shoulder, he added, “I have confidence in Esmeral, she has a way with words. But knowing her, she’d want me to compensate her.”

    At that Deathsaurus, decided to give Deathcobra a small tour of the new ship. It was larger than the previous ship, the Thunder Arrow. Unsure which room to select, Deathcobra grabbed Cobrabreast from his bosom and asked him for his opinion. Cobrabreast looked at Deathcobra and their emperor, and stuck out his tongue, flicking it.

    Smiling, Deathcobra said, “He says he liked the small room next to Leozack and Lyzack’s room because of that window at the top near the corner. I miss my old room. I know we were sabotaged, but what happened?”

    “A plucky pink Autobot planted bombs and detonated them,” said Deathsaurus. “She appeared to have connections to that mysterious ring of Autobot saboteurs, which would explain her excellent stealth. They probably figured out how we wanted to help rig the elections to Starscream’s favor. But then, the actual votes got counted in and Starscream won anyway.”

    Deathcobra smiled. He didn’t want to admit that everyone else in his household of voting age, all voted for Bumblebee. According to his own carrier, “That round boy is a good baby boy.” He was aware of Starscream’s previous status of Decepticon second in command, and how Megatron had always said he was unfit to lead.

    Since Megatron was highly respected, it was natural for his family to accept this as a true statement. In fact, this was the reason why many Tyrestans voted for Bumblebee. The last thing they wanted was for Cybertron to be in the hands of someone unfit to lead. The Kalisians, on the other hand, mostly voted for Starscream. To them, Starscream’s red in his color scheme meant he was a bold noble individual with a fiery passion to help others. This was the type of person who was fit to lead because he understood his duty was to help the people. Flame had voted for Starscream too but this was because Deathcobra asked him to. Flame wasn’t even going to vote because he didn’t really like either candidate and thought Bumblebee was unfit to lead because he was too young.

    After selecting his room, Deathcobra left the door open and sat on the bed.

    Deathsaurus said before leaving, “If you need anything, let me know."

 Deathcobra extended his arm upwards, and Cobrabreast climbed up his arm and near the windowsill of the window he liked. He made a quiet hissing sound.

    “Don’t remind me,” whispered Deathcobra. “I’ve had nightmares about this.” There was a familiar knock on the door and Deathcobra shouted, “You may enter my lair.”

    Leozack entered, with his arms outstretched. “Deathcobra, my friend! Long time, no see.” They greeted each other with a hug. Leozack then ejected his symbiote, Lionbreast, who jumped up to the windowsill to curl up next to Cobrabreast.

    But something wasn’t right and Deathcobra looked sick. Concerned, Leozack asked, “What’s wrong?”

    “I had an accident,” said Deathcobra, who didn’t want to lie to his friend. “My client and I went fragging around in some ruins and I got stabbed by a trap. Fortunately, we saw a healer just in time and I got repaired. It was my fault, I wasn’t being careful.”

    Leozack frowned but he was relieved his friend had survived. He wouldn’t have known what he’d do if Deathcobra had senselessly died in some freak accident. He’d probably blame it on Hellbat because he needed someone to blame. Deathcobra then told him about the other things he had done while away.

    As they spoke, they didn’t realize that Hellbat was eavesdropping. As much as he hated to admit, Hellbat was jealous of Deathcobra. Deathcobra was everything he wished he was, but somehow better than that. Hellbat was so focused on picking up the delicious gossip that he didn’t notice someone standing behind him.

    Without warning, Lyzack put her cold skinny fingers against Hellbat’s sides and playfully squealed, “Tickle!”

    Hellbat screamed, as Leozack and Deathcobra overheard him. Deathcobra crossed his arms and remained unimpressed by Hellbat’s annoying antics. Meanwhile, Leozack was happy his twin sister was around to distract Hellbat. (Although, he didn’t really trust Hellbat being around her because he was manipulative and she had a tendency to be too trusting.)

    Upset, Hellbat whispered, “Damn it! I was trying to see if Deathcobra was really here.”

    “Wait, what?” said Lyzack who darted into the room and got uncomfortably too close to Deathcobra, at least for Hellbat. “Hi!”

    Deathcobra smiled, “Hi. How have you been? I know you were worried about our finances.”

    “Of course,” said Lyzack. She didn’t want to admit to him that it was her fault Arcee, the plucky pink Autobot, had snuck in. She really didn’t think Arcee was going to do something bad. She looked like an innocent femme who only wanted to preach about the word of Primus. This was partially the reason she had volunteered to sacrifice her entire paycheck. She felt she deserved to be punished but was too scared to say anything.

    Leozack didn’t mind Lyzack being around Deathcobra. Unlike Hellbat, he wasn’t the manipulative type, or at least that was what Deathcobra led him to believe. He had such a seductive serpentine gaze that he could clearly do no wrong. They all continued to chat.

    At one point, Lyzack called over Hellbat to join them. Leozack and Deathcobra didn’t like it at all, but since he was basically Lyzack’s best friend, they had no choice but to accept him. As for the breast animals, Cobrabreast and Lionbreast got along with Kōmoribreast (Hellbat’s symbiote), and were happy to see him as flew up to the window to greet them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was surprised I managed to write a full chapter in one day. O_o But I guess it's because I've been inspired lately. :D Sorry if this sounds too much like a recap. :S
> 
> Before you ask, Hellbat knows about Flame, because Deathcobra has vented his feelings about him in the past. But since Leozack has never met Flame, he's unsure if they're a good match. Based on how level-headed Deathcobra tends to be, Flame is at least decent.
> 
>  **Please note that Lyzack and Hellbat have a platonic friendship in this AU.** Although Leozack, being so distrustful, assumes they may be dating and he doesn't want that. Hellbat likes to pretend he's dating his rival's sister just to mess with him. Lyzack doesn't care but she doesn't enjoy seeing her brother upset.


	10. Compensation and customer satisfaction.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Deathsaurus' turn to pay up what he owes to Esmeral, in the privacy of their chamber! Obviously, this means they're going to engage in happy marital interface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This m/f porn chapter is a lot different than what I originally intended, not that it matters. :P

    After dinner, the emperor and his empress made their way to their private chamber, located in a more secluded section of the ship. After locking the doors, Deathsaurus ejected his two breast animals, Tigerbreast and Eaglebreast, and ordered them to leave the room. However, the breast animals looked on as Esmeral pinned Deathsaurus against the wall, with her strong hands touching his vulnerable breasts. She moved in closer and kissed his neck, slowly moving downwards. The more she kissed him, the more tense he became. Realizing he was uncomfortable, Esmeral pulled away.

    "What's wrong?" she asked.

    "Tigerbreast and Eaglebreast are still here," he said.

    Esmeral turned to Tigerbreast and Eaglebreast, who looked at her innocently. Annoyed, she picked them up and carried them towards the door saying, "You two won't listen to him, but you _will_ listen to me. Go keep Solon some company. We're going to be busy." Esmeral didn't even let them have a chance to protest, before putting them both outside and locking the door. 

    Deathsaurus was still standing against the wall. Seizing the moment, she resumed fondling his exposed breast. She got close to his ear and whispered, "You kinky titty penguin, do you think I'm ignorant to your games? Your breast animals are too loyal to you to disobey, you wanted them here for something."

    No longer able to hide intentions, Deathsaurus smirked, "You caught me. I just wanted something a bit more _animalistic_."

    Esmeral raised an eyebrow. "Transform!" she cried as she transformed into her alt-mode. 

    Like her beloved emperor, she too had a beast mode. Originally, she was a dragon but she liked Deathsaurus' more avian look that she re-scanned and made her alt-mode more similar to his. She bent over and stretched, trying to get comfortable in her alt-mode. It wasn't what he had in mind, but it had been a while since the two of them had interfaced in their alt-modes. Deathsaurus decided to transform too. He was much larger and intimidating-looking than she was. She moved back some, to give him some space to stretch out. Unlike other Cybertronians, those with beast-modes could interface in that form. However, their physical needs often changed.

    Deathsaurus puffed up his chest and extended his wings. Stretching out his neck, he opened his mouth and let out a frightening screech. He then relaxed his neck and began to move it back and forth as Esmeral watched, dull-eyed and intrigued. He cocked his head and began to move his hips in a sensual manner. Eventually, his entire body was caught up in the rhythmic movement. He moved closer to his wife, with his wings still extended and made a few shrilling chirps.

    Satisfied that everything was going well, he then approached her and gently headbutted her in the chest while let out a soft, sensual growl. “You want some, don't you my empress?”

    Chuckling, Esmeral replied, “No, I want it all.”

    "Are you sure about that?" he asked, as he started to circle her, while she moved trying to maintain her eye-contact with him.

    "Of course," she replied, as she retracted her valve panel.

    Upon hearing it retract, he hurried behind her and mounted her, while she wheezed. A few seconds later, he got off of her and started his courtship display all over again. What Esmeral enjoyed the most was the dancing, in her opinion it was the best kind of foreplay imaginable. Being satisfied, she said to him, "How about we change things up a little." She transformed back into her robot mode.

    Following suit, he pinned her against the ground and spread her legs apart, and moving them up towards her head to have her valve exposed completely to him. His speed surprised her so much, that her valve panel retracted exposing her soft genital plating. Her labia quivered and she could feel the cool fluids drip down her crotch. He then moved closer and spread her labia apart, touching her gingerly with the tips of his claws. The sensation was enough to send chills through her entire body and instantly harden her external node. Esmeral was at the mercy of a fearsome ravenous beast, who was staring deep inside of her, and this frightened her. She held on to her legs for dear life.

    As for Deathsaurus, as much as he enjoyed seeing his wife become so tense because it made her more excitable, it bothered him that it happened too regularly for his tastes. His fondest wish was to have her relaxed in his arms, while he pounded the hell out of her and that she enjoyed every second of it, begging him for more until it gradually became rougher but still tender. However, he knew he had to be patient with her to get her to that point. Fortunately, they had the entire night to themselves.

    “Since I want to treat you right tonight, I'll indulge you the way you say they do it in Caminus,” said Deathsaurus, “spikelessly pleasuring your valve.”

    “That's okay,” chuckled Esmeral nervously, “I enjoyed it when you mounted me earlier. That was exactly what I wanted. T…thank you so much dear…”

    “No I insist,” purred Deathsaurus, who stuck out his long rough tongue which had a row of sharp teeth on each side, and licked the tip of Esmeral's node, making her squeal out of fright the moment he touched her. Rethinking his strategy, he added, “Hold on…”

    He looked through his subspace, while still spreading her labia apart, and pulled out a soft red twisted dildo, which he had ready for the occasion. He thought it was odd that Camiens, at least from what he had heard about that peculiar sect and what Esmeral had told him, didn't like using spikes during interface but loved using various colorful interface toys. He wanted to know why that was but didn't have the right words to properly ask. Instead, he assumed it had something to do with Solus Prime, whom the Camiens seemed devoted to.

    He squeezed the toy, which oozed out a bit of lubricant and coated it, and inserted it into Esmeral's valve. He watched her become tense when the cool lubricant touched her warm plating, but then immediately begin to relax once Deathsaurus started to carefully move it back and forth. She looked at the rhythmic movement of his wrist, and how her valve seemed to be enjoying the sensation, before turning her gaze at her husband who was simply trying to figure out how to make her feel good.

    Feeling a bit cheeky, he pulled out the toy which was now covered in lubricant and her fluids, and licked it in front of her. Though it backfired because she saw how he sliced it a bit with his sharp tongue. He didn't seem to notice his wife's sudden distress when he then leaned in and kissed her node, barely touching it with his soft harmless lips. Excited, he retracted his codpiece and penetrated her with his spike, gently thrusting away. Fortunately, his spike was smooth and made out of softer plating, just like his lips.

    Perhaps, it was the whiplash of emotions, but she suddenly became nostalgic about her first time interfacing with him. It wasn't much different, because he had always been sensually captivating and terrifying at the same time. Back in Caminus, the moon in which the Camien sect landed after departing from Cybertron dozens of solar cycles ago, Esmeral enjoyed the spikeless interface with her amica endurae and other close friends. She was particularly fond of most oral foreplay, particularly when someone sucked on her breasts or ate out her valve – or just kissed her all over. Without a second thought, she had told Deathsaurus everything she knew she enjoyed when he asked. She had always been sincere with him. But the moment was practically ruined when she saw that his tongue had rows of teeth on it and to think something so sharp would go inside her most vulnerable parts upset her. Trying to figure out what to do next, that was when he penetrated her, which felt foreign to her because his spike was hot as well as his cum but it felt so nice and right at the same time.

    Seeing that everything was finally going according to plan, Deathsaurus turned Esmeral to her side and kissed her as he pounded her. For a few moments, Esmeral forgot how dangerous his mouth was and allowed him to kiss her deeply. Since he was in full control of his tongue, among other things, he didn't nick her and his extra teeth felt like they didn't even exist. Finally, he turned her once more to where she had her back towards him, and was on her hands and knees. (This was the most ideal position and their respective favorite.) Esmeral liked this position because it reminded her of mating in her beast-mode and that she didn't need to be looking at how sharp and pointy her husband was. Deathsaurus loved it because he liked to see his wife's big fat aft jiggle with each thrust…even though his own massive breasts sometimes blocked the delightful view. He moved his hands down from her narrow waist and gently spanked her aft to see it jiggle even more.

    “Ow!” she hissed, though she was more started by the light stinging sensation.

    “Your cheeks like a pair of freshly baked muffins,” said Deathsaurus, which a devious smile, “I'd love to sink my teeth into them.”

    Taking his dirty talk to seriously, she mumbled, “Please don't, it'll hurt.”

    “Fine, I'll just cover them in cream,” he said as he pulled out and ejaculated all over her aft, making after aft look like perfectly glazed muffins. Without thinking twice, he started licking her aft clean. 

    She widened her eyes and was too afraid to ask what he was thinking. That was another thing that frightened her about him; he was unpredictable and sometimes his actions made no sense. She wouldn't have been surprised if he had told her, he was ingesting his own proteins to make himself stronger. (That seemed like the kind of weird and random thing he would say. Whether it was a serious claim or a tease, made no difference.) She was too confused to notice his sharp tongue against her plating, but then he also didn't cut her. He finally buried his face in between her cheeks, before going back to hump her like normal. 

    He continued to pound deep into her, as if he wanted to spark her. After all, their adopted techno-organic son, Solon, was in need of a sibling to play with. Unlike his beast-mode, his robot-mode lasted much longer during interface. After feeling that he filled her up, he curled up next to her. She looked at him and smiled gently, before closing her eyes. It wasn't as bad as she thought.

    Deathsaurus looked through his subspace and pulled out a clipboard that had a form on it and a pencil. He handed her the clipboard and pencil. Opening her eyes slowly, she saw his survey. "Are you satisfied with my performance?" followed by a scale of 0 - 10, along with other pertinent questions. 

    Esmeral sighed, why did her beloved husband and emperor always substitute the pillow talk for a comprehensive survey? Although it annoyed her to some extent, Deathsaurus had always been good to take her feedback into consideration for their next session and she had no words to describe how much she appreciated that. Deathsaurus waited patiently for her to fill out the survey, but with the extra courtship displays he had done, he was exhausted and quickly fell asleep.

    Some time passed before he woke up again, perhaps it was half an hour and Esmeral was no longer there. He saw the clock on the nightstand, it was about the time that Esmeral tucked Solon to bed. Deathsaurus decided to get up and brush his teeth. As he did, the clipboard fell on the ground and he picked it up, only to notice it was blank. Still groggy, he panicked, thinking there was an emergency and Esmeral didn't have time to fill it out. Upon further inspection, he realized it was a different survey. It was one Esmeral made asking him about her performance. He set the clipboard on the bed and went to brush his teeth. Afterwards, he put on his glasses and waited for Esmeral in bed as he happily filled out her survey. It was difficult for him to do, since he felt the ratings were insufficient to describe how he felt about her.

    Moments later, Esmeral returned with Tigerbreast and Eaglebreast in hand. Satisfied that he was enjoying the survey, she laid down next to him and closed her eyes. After completing the survey, he put the clipboard on the nightstand and turned off the lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And no, Deathsaurus doesn't have a huge stack of surveys. He usually shredded them the next day or whenever he had time to finish reading her feedback, for the sake of privacy. He just does it because he's very formal with his interactions. XD
> 
>  **(7 JANUARY, 2018) EDIT:** I decided to go back and add to this chapter some more. I was so caught up trying to post something for the month that I didn't take the time to get "into" their relationship. Since I want to have a slightly different take to it, I made it this entire scenario more like xeno...except it's not because both are Cybertronians with beast-modes, except he's more dangerous.


	11. Some necessary preparations.

    The next day, the Warworld arrived near the outskirts of Iacon and Esmeral proceeded to ground-bridge to the presidential manor. She appeared inside the president’s office, where Starscream was waiting for her, sitting on his comfy seat facing the wall.

    Starscream swiveled his seat to face her, he had a glass of fine Iaconian wine in one hand and a couple of cheesy crackers in the other. “Esmeral, it’s good to see you. How is your husband doing?”

    “He’s adjusting,” shrugged Esmeral. “These have been a rough couple of months for everyone.”

    “Hold my crackers,” said Starscream as he stood up and handed the small bag to Esmeral. He swallowed the crackers in his hand and chugged the rest of his wine, putting the empty glass on his desk. He unlocked a drawer from his desk and pulled out a briefcase, covered in various Decepticon emblem stickers. “Yesterday after you called, I had Skywarp deliver this to my office. When he arrives, we’ll leave.”

    “Skywarp will be subbing for you?” asked Esmeral, raising an eyebrow.

    “Thundercracker is too busy with his little pupper,” replied Starscream, “Others will know right away that he is not me. As for Skywarp, this will give him something to do. My assistant is aware of the switch, and I’ve ordered him to keep an eye on the situation, once something comes up.”

    Just then, Skywarp teleported into the office. He was temporarily repainted in Starscream’s color and for a moment, Esmeral couldn’t tell him apart from Starscream. The real Starscream smiled and said to Esmeral, “You see? Let’s go, your husband is waiting for us.”

    “Bye!” said Skywarp happily.

    Esmeral waved goodbye to Skywarp, before entering the ground-bridge with Starscream.

    They arrived in the Warworld, which promptly made its way to nearby Kaon. (Being in Decepticon territory, they were generally safe from anyone meddling in their affairs.) As they were heading to their destination, Deathsaurus caught up with Starscream and Esmeral.

    Starscream’s eyes widened. Something about the big busty blue mech always got to him. Starscream looked away, to avoid staring at him. Esmeral noticed and tried to stifle her laughter because she sympathized with him. When they entered the meeting room, Deathsaurus pulled out the two spark containment units from his subspace and placed them on the table.

    Starscream almost fell over backwards upon seeing the spark containment units. Concerned, Deathsaurus asked, “What’s wrong?”

    “Where did you get these?” asked Starscream.

    “Deathcobra’s amica endura was digging around in the Sea of Rust,” said Esmeral, “And gifted them to us so we could reanimate these legendary heroes as combiners.”

    “Yes, that’s precisely why their sparks were stored like this,” said Starscream catching his breath. “In fact, they’re the reason the technique I used to create combiners was created to begin with. However, the locals of the Republic of Rust, how Tyrest and Kalis were named at the time, were wary of this. It was an experimental procedure at the time and their high-reverence for the dead made them bury the spark containment unit in a secret location for them to rest in peace. However, after these locals died, their secret died with them.” Starscream looked at the couple in the eye and said, “Everything about this will go down in the history books and everyone involved will be remembered forever.”

    Starscream opened his briefcase and pulled out a special tape. He wrote the names “King” and “Kaiser” on two strips and labeled the spark containment units appropriately. He wanted to make sure there were no mistakes. Before he could begin with his ritualistic procedure, he had to gather everyone and brief them on the situation but he had to wait until they arrived in Kaon.

    Meanwhile, Drillhorn was piloting the Warworld with Jaruga as his co-pilot.

    Uncomfortable with the silence, Jaruga asked, “What do you think of that combiner experiment that the emperor wants to do?”

    “Don’t remind me,” replied Drillhorn, “I understand why the emperor wishes to proceed with this but it doesn’t make it less creepy. I had a close friend long ago, both of us were from the same mines and joined the Decepticons at the same time. At some point after Jhiaxus took over the Combiners Project, my friend was selected to take part in an experiment he did not consent to.” Drillhorn looked at Jaruga and said, “They forced him to combine; to have his spark, his very life essence merge with that of strangers. The procedure violated his very being and he never recovered from it. I didn’t know at the time, I just noticed he no longer wanted to speak to me until the day he decided to defect. That is when he confessed his sorrows to me.”

    “Drillhorn,” said Jaruga, “Do you really think our experience will be the same as his?”

    “I don’t know,” he replied. Taking a deep breath, Drillhorn added, “I trust the emperor. I know that he cares deeply for each and every one of us. But it unnerves me because it reminds me of my old friend’s traumatic experience.”

    “You don’t have to do it, you know that, right?” asked Jaruga. “I look forward to it because of the power boost and the chance to bond with the rest of you as brothers. I overheard the Dinoforce talking excitedly about it. I’m sure they’re more than eager to volunteer first. That’s the difference. The Dinoforce and I look forward to becoming one with our brothers but your friend, he did not.”

    “Jaruga,” sighed Drillhorn, “Thank you. If you put it that way, it sounds nice.” Drillhorn smiled because he knew he could count on Jaruga to calm his fears. After a bit of a pause, Drillhorn was more relaxed and started talking about his experiences as a miner. (Specifically as a drill tank and how he missed burrowing in the soil.)

* * *

 

    Within moments, they arrived in Kaon. Starscream had rented a hangar in the local airport for them to conduct their experiments. Deathcobra was brought over to Starscream and explained to him what had occurred. He explained to him in detail the folklore surrounding the fallen heroes.

    King, was aptly named as such since he was a fearsome warrior, whose bravery and skill in combat were only rivaled by his faith in Primus. He had a tendency to be more independent. For this reason, he did not retreat in his final showdown against their cruel Quintesson masters and fought valiantly until his death. Right away, it seemed like he was an appropriate match for the Dinoforce.

    Kaiser, on the other hand was the intellectual of the pair. Although he was good melee fighter, he preferred to use trickery first in order to best his opponents bloodlessly. But then, he was a devoted follower of the Vector Sigma sect and theirs is a religion of peace with an emphasis in enlightenment. He also refused to retreat and was killed beside his brother-in-arms, King. Starscream just decided to assign Kaiser to the Breastforce. After all, they were cunning businessmen which was close-enough to a warrior-theologian since both of them were pretty smart.

    With his decision in mind, Starscream asked, “So Deathcobra, who is this amica endura of yours?”

    Aware that Starscream was only interested in the most delicious of gossips, Deathcobra said, “His name is Flame.” He showed him a selfie he had taken with him, obviously with the Autobot symbol conveniently cropped out. He had other photos of Flame, but the recent ones were that of Flame posing with the antiquities they found. (Even thought they were supposed only take photos of the findings, Flame insisted he be photographed too.)

    Seeing his red optics, Starscream smiled, “Oh, he looks…very educated.” It was uncommon for Decepticons to have pursued higher education. Starscream was not one to judge or suspect Flame was an Autobot, because he too went to the prestigious Science Academy in Iacon.

    “He is a geologist but likes archaeology as a hobby,” replied Deathcobra.

    A sense of dread came over him and Cobrabreast detached from his chest and climbed on his shoulder. Deathcobra thought about what else to say that wouldn’t incriminate Flame as an Autobot. Making sustained eye-contact with Starscream, Deathcobra said, “Sir, you look a bit tired from your trip.”

    Starscream, having fallen under Deathcobra’s hypnosis, almost drifted off to sleep where he sat. Since the effect was temporary, it quickly wore off. Recomposing himself from what felt like sudden dreaming, Starscream asked, “What were we talking about again?”

    “You were telling me you were going to fetch Goryu, so you could begin the ritual with the Dinoforce,” said Deathcobra.

    “That’s right, excuse me,” said Starscream as he got up and took his briefcase with him.

    Deathcobra got up and noticed that Cobrabreast was still looking the other way. Deathcobra turned around to see Kōmoribreast hanging upside down from the ceiling. It was obvious that Hellbat had sent him to spy on them. Deathcobra put his finger against his lips and hissed at him, before leaving the room. Undeterred, Kōmoribreast followed Deathcobra and entered his quarters along with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah that's right, Deathcobra, the snake character, has the hypnotic snake powers of Kaa from The Jungle Book. Apparently, only psychic characters (Hellbat), powerful characters (Deathsaurus and Esmeral), and other snake characters (his carrier) are immune to this ability. 
> 
> Between Hellbat and Deathcobra, Hellbat's hypnosis is more powerful and effective because it's sound/vibration-based, as opposed to Deathcobra's visual hypnosis. (Which can be negated, if you avoid eye-contact with him.) Also, Hellbat is unusually powerful which classifies him as an outlier like it was mentioned earlier.


	12. The Rebirth of the Republic's Guardians.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Breastforce and the Dinoforce are turned into combiners, i.e. the titular characters; the sovereigns of the Republic [of Rust], in Kaon.

    Out of desperation, Deathsaurus had made contact with some organics and offered to trade some missiles for valuable minerals a few days ago. The organics had accepted and their rendezvous was at a distant star system in about three weeks.

* * *

 

    Starscream was uneasy about the arrangement. In fact, the first thing he wanted to do was work out a loan with Deathsaurus, but that would require him to withdraw a very large sum of money from his account. This would make Starscream's subordinates working at the presidential manor _even more_ suspicious of him. Starscream couldn't risk any type of controversy, given that Deathsaurus was a suspected Tyrest Accord violator. He already had too many enemies waiting for him to make a mistake to justify impeaching him or even worse.

    In Kaon at the hangar, Starscream held a meeting with the Dinoforce in regards to turning them into the combiner team who was going to resurrect King. Although it had been many, many years since Starscream was involved in the Combiners Project, he still remembered what to do. Since the Destrons were pressed for time, Starscream decided to skip the bonding exercises and go right for the actual ritual. Normally, Starscream would recoil at the the thought of skipping the bonding exercises. They were extremely important since combining was often believed to be a more intimate union than interfacing, and the combiner would be unstable if the team lacked the strong bond. However, he trusted Deathsaurus who claimed that despite their disorganization, the Dinoforce were very loyal to each other that they never abandon their weakest member. There was no reason to doubt Deathsaurus either, he cared deeply for this Destrons.

    Starscream was drawing a sigil on the ground with a special transmuted chalk.

    "What's that?" asked Gairyu, the ankylosaurus warrior.

    "For this ritual, I need to summon a temporary Engima of Combination," explained Starscream, "this method is actually more complicated than using the actual Engima of Combination. Because with the actual relic, you can point at some random mechs and it turns them into a combiner team. But with this temporary, single-use copy of the relic, we need the team to stand on the sigil, and the spark of a city guardian or metrotitan we plan to 'revive'."

    "Where's the Engima?" asked Yokuryu, the pteranodon warrior.

    "The Autobots have it," said Goryu, their leader; a T-Rex. 

    "That's unfair," sighed Doryu, the stegosaurus warrior.

    Meanwhile, Kakuryu, the triceratops, and Rairyu, the brontosaurus, were in the back happily humming a random tune. As far as they were concerned, Starscream had everything under control. After satisfied that the Dinoforce had understood his explanation, he called over the Breastforce. Starscream was surprised he didn't see Deathcobra among them, so he assumed that perhaps Deathcobra was uneasily about it since he was in a relationship. (Relationships with combiner team members tends to be tricky. More monogamous individuals feel they are "cheating" on their lover with the intimacy involved in combining. Sometimes the non-member mate of a combiner team member may feel like they practically have the rest of the team as bonus harem.)

    The Breastforce didn't ask many questions and seemed to understand the material better than the Dinoforce did. Happy that everything was going to plan, Starscream gathered everyone to watch the ritual. He then ordered the Dinoforce to enter the transmutation circle he had drawn earlier. Everyone else, including himself, stood at a safe distance. From afar, Starscream had instructed Goryu to activate the transmutation.

    Goryu stood at his spot on the transmutation circle, holding King's spark containment unit. When Starscream gave him the thumbs up, Goryu unlocked the spark containment unit and violently hurled it into the middle of the circle, which bore a resemblance to the Enigma of Combination itself. Upon seeing what Goryu had done, Deathsaurus collapsed on the floor. The spark containment unit was an extremely valuable antiquity that easily cost three times the Destrons' current inventory of items. Esmeral and Lyzack rushed to Deathsaurus' side and sat him up.

    The impact opened the spark containment unit and the spark fell out. However, its energy activated the transmutation circle which ensnared it like a web. The spark seemed to have gotten absorbed by the circle and it split into five separate sparks which flew directly at the Dinoforce members. They were in shock with what had occurred that they froze in place as their chests opened up to store the spark fragments in their spark chamber. Each member felt this spark fragment begin to reformat their bodies. The sensation was painful since they were all literally growing a new organ, the combiner joint, in a short amount of time. The energy released in the ritual kicked up the dust and formed a small whirlwind around the entire team. Starscream and the others had no choice but to cover themselves. Fortunately, the whirlwind didn't last long. When it settled, the combiner stood before them.

    His expression was blank, as far as he was concerned his spark was in hibernation because his body no longer accepted his spark but now he had a functional body. The city-guardian looked at his scaly frame and then back at the others at the hangar. The Dinoforce itself was in shock. Even though Starscream tried to explain the intimacy in detail, it could not compare to how they felt at that moment. They had become one with each other and a mech they had never met before. This mech was an honorable warrior; the exact type of person the Dinoforce strove to imitate but often failed. It now felt as if they knew him their entire lives. This mech was confused too upon seeing the Dinoforce. They seemed like good people. After everyone got over their initial shock, they all started to bond with each other. All of this happened so fast that the combiner only stood disoriented for a couple of seconds.

    After getting his thoughts in order, he said to the others, “From this day forward, I am now Dinoking!”

    Out of habit, Starscream asked, “Dinoking, are you a Decepticon as well?”

    Having understood and sympathized with the reasons his Dinoforce components had chosen to become Decepticons, Dinoking said, “Yes, but not a proper one. I’ve not been branded like my components yet.”

    “Don’t worry about the branding,” said Starscream, as he flew up to Dinoking and sat on his shoulder. “If your components are branded, then so are you. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Dinoking.”

    “Where is Kaiser?” asked Dinoking.

    “We have yet not reformatted him like we did to you,” replied Starscream. “We wanted to know for certain if this would work and it has. I promise that you will see him soon-enough.” Starscream flew back down, since he was too embarrassed to cry in front of Dinoking. The experiment was executed so perfectly, that Stascream could not hide his joy. Dinoking was coherent, alert, and stable. He was the everything Starscream had hoped to accomplish in the Combiners Project.

    Dinoking, Esmeral, Solon, Lyzack, Deathsaurus and Deathcobra then watched Starscream draw a new transmutation circle and initiate the ritual with the remaining Breastforce. Once again, Deathsaurus collapsed upon seeing them handle an antiquity in such a rough manner. This time, Starscream facepalmed because Deathsaurus was overreacting (both spark containment units were fine). He had no desire to declare himself Emperor of Destruction just because Deathsaurus had fallen. After all, Deathsaurus was his friend and usurping was only reserved for Megatron for being an incompetent leader. Had it not been for the fact that Dinoking and the Dinoforce were such honorable warriors, they would've laughed at their fallen emperor because it was funny.

    The Breastforce became one, as they did they felt every single emotion and thought their respective companions did. The stranger among them felt like the missing component to their team. He appeared to be an intermediary of sorts and was quick to soothe Drillhorn’s apprehension and comfort Guyhawk's cynicism. It took about a minute for this combiner to speak, as there was still much work to be done to make sure everyone was at peace with themselves.

    Smiling the combiner said, “In honor of my new friends, I shall go by Liokaiser from now on.”

He turned to Dinoking and hurried to him. Since he was still getting used to his body, he nearly tripped but Dinoking was able to catch him. They looked at each other for a moment. It had been too long since they had been apart and they both craved each other’s touch. However, Liokaiser quickly became flustered with what had occurred that he disappeared.

    “Oh no!” cried Lyzack.

    “Don’t worry, Liokaiser is still here,” said Dinoking, with a smug grin, as he smacked the air and made a smacking noise. “He just likes to turn invisible.” He whispered to Liokaiser, “It’s okay, they understand that you’re just adjusting to your new body. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Taking advantage of the fact that the smaller mechs couldn’t see his face very well, Dinoking kissed his friend.

    Concerned, Leozack said to Kaiser, “We didn’t agree to  _this_!”

    “Yeah we did,” chuckled Killbison, “Didn’t you know that for those ‘Primal Vernacular’ cultures, ‘friend’ basically means ‘frag buddy’? Like King and Kaiser’s entire lore was how _close_ they were. They died in each other's arms, for crying out loud!”

    “Yeah!” said Guyhawk smacking his hands together, somehow unsure whether or not the thirst he felt was his or Kaiser's, “I can’t wait for us to get pounded by that dino _dick_!”

    Leozack turned to Hellbat, who was equally concerned, but quiet. It was the first time that either of them agreed so strongly with each other over something. At that, Liokaiser slowly regained visibility. As for Dinoking and the Dinoforce, they all completely agreed that King had every right to interface with his mate and helping him achieve that was an honorable thing to do for him.

    After everyone got settled, both combiners uncombined and their respective teams reported to Starscream for an evaluation. They seemed a bit dazed, but otherwise in good health. The experiment was a success.

    Deathsaurus wanted to invite Starscream to dinner, to thank him for his service, but Stascream declined. He didn’t want to be seen crying at a restaurant too. They all flew back to the outskirts of Iacon and ground bridged Starscream back to his private residence. Skywarp greeted him and was happy that Starscream was finally having a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the only reason Dinoking and Liokaiser know how to speak fluent Neocybex is because their components know the language. And since these unions work vice-versa, the combiner team members that didn't understand Primal Vernacular, now know it...although it's an archaic version.
> 
> Combiners themselves tend to be unstable, due to disagreements of their components. This is why Starscream only wanted to perform this ritual on teams that had achieved a brotherly closeness, because it meant the combiners would be more stable. However, Megatron thought Starscream was being insubordinate for not making more combiners, so he had him removed from the project and replaced with Jhiaxus. Jhiaxus had no consideration of the harmonic balance involved and experimented to produce more, extremely-unstable, combiners. It was so distasteful that Starscream swore he would never make or work on combiners ever again.
> 
> However, Dinoking and Liokaiser were so stable that for an instant you'd forget they were combiners. This seemed to vaporize some of Starscream's sorrow. Both of them were exactly what Starscream had hoped to achieve; he was at peace, at least in terms of the Combiners Project.


	13. The Republic's Benefactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Destrons' greatest enemy finally appears!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A random filler chapter that I used as an excuse to include my boy (the chief justice) in more fanfic. I think he is fascinating as a concept, so I'm compelled to use him since canon material likely would not. @A@
> 
> Also, you can skip this chapter if you like. It barely adds to the plot except to tie it more to [The City of Wonder](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7042765/chapters/16017973), because this story is a spin-off of it. In fact, it felt like it should've been a one-shot had it been a tad bit longer because it's so different.

    Meanwhile at the Baird Beaming Transmitter in Kalis, the chief justice (author of the Tyrest Accord) was relaxing at an open patio with several government officials. They had been filming unbiased political commercials to air in the region. The local elections were coming up and the public needed to be informed of the new proposals to vote for or against. The chief justice had secretly arrived in Kalis for the filming, otherwise there would've been a huge media frenzy because of his popularity and generally high approval rating. The chief justice had no plans on staying for more than a day.

    One official pulled out several joints, that he rolled himself, and handed them to everyone present, including the chief justice.

    Normally, the chief justice would politely decline, especially if his Duly Appointed Enforcer was nearby, but since he was in terrible pain at the moment, he accepted it. Before he lit his joint, the chief justice asked, “What is this about wanting to ban the death penalty, that I've been hearing about?”

    The senior officials remained silent. They had been familiar with the chief justice to know a trap when they encountered one. However, the junior official did not and was not warned about it. After taking a small hit, the junior official said, much to the horror of his colleagues, “This topic has been coming up repeatedly in the past several town-hall meetings in both Kalis and Tyrest. Many people have argued that it is cruel and violates the most important aspects of our loving faith. And since us government officials work to serve our community, it is our duty to let the people vote on this matter since they feel so strongly about it.”

    The chief justice raised an eyebrow and said, “Flywheels, may I have your joint?”

    “Yes sir,” replied Flywheels as he handed the chief justice his lit joint. The chief traded his unlit joint to him. Flywheels was both flattered and baffled by the gesture. In their culture, such an exchange was only done among family members or close friends. (Since it is akin to sharing a soft drink from the same can.)

    The chief justice took a big hit from the joint and paused. He looked at the joint and shot a quick glance at Flywheels, before side-eyeing the other officials. “I apologize for the forwardness, but I wanted to know what you all were smoking that made you _think_ proposing to ban capital punishment was a _good idea_ …”

    Flywheel's eyes widened.

    “…It seems that this is nothing out of the ordinary. Just some regular, wholesome herb…,” added the chief justice. With the chief justice, it was difficult to read his body language. He always had an aloof regal aura with a neutral expression. However, when confronted with something he felt very strongly about, he would no longer be able to keep himself so composed. The chief justice was very much in favor of capital punishment and he had strong (often negative opinions) on those who dared oppose it. However, he was impressed with Flywheel's sincerity and totally mellowed-out by the herb, that he was unable to berate anyone. He took another hit before flashing a earnest grin. With a gentle expression he chuckled, "That's what I get for having faith in democracy."

    "Shouldn't we only have faith in Primus?" asked another official.

    "You make a reasonable point," replied Tyrest. He turned to Flywheels and asked, "I've been meaning to ask you, what was your platform for your candidacy? The people don't usually elect a new official so easily. You must have seriously impressed everyone."

    "My best friend vouched for me, your Highness," smiled Flywheels.

    "Who is your best friend?" asked Tyrest.

    "Trypticon," replied Flywheels.

    The Tyrestan officials nodded in agreement. With such a powerful ally, Flywheels was an excellent candidate despite running to be the head of the tourism department. The chief justice couldn't remember who Trypticon was but since the Tyrestans seemed to like him, he was probably a good dependable mech capable of pulling a deus ex machina. Despite obliterating Autobot forces during the war, Trypticon, the mighty metrotitan, still somehow managed to follow the Tyrest Accord an was never listed as a violator. Tyrest wasn't aware of him, as a result. Not to mention, Tyrest had so many things that worried him that he couldn't possibly remember the name of every single prominent Autobot and Decepticon warrior.

    The conversation shifted to a more light-hearted one. One of the  senior officials mentioned that he had seen a message in the stars, claiming that Vector Sigma will finally be located. Other officials also said the same thing and had checked with astronomers at the observatory in Tyrest University. The largest Primalist sect in the Sea of Rust was very devoted to Vector Sigma, Primus' sacred conduit, despite it being lost in the sandy dunes. The old folktales claimed it was buried in the dunes by two legendary city-guardians, King and Kaiser, in an effort to hide it from the Quintessons. Like everyone else, they feared the Quintessons would defile the sacred artifact, just like they defiled their ancestors with their unethical experiments and breeding projects. Although others knew about the whereabouts of Vector Sigma, after King and Kaiser were slain, they decided to destroy any maps marking the location, so the Quintessons wouldn't get a hold of it. Centuries passed, and everyone who would've remembered its exact location had become one with the All-Spark. And like their ancestors' vow of secrecy, the government officials and the astronomers decided to keep quiet about this revelation or not confirm it. The last thing they wanted to do is to raise the people's hopes up or cause a scandal. Upon hearing the news, the chief justice was relieved. He had tried to do his best to keep the Sea of Rust safe from the ravages of war. 

    A now enlightened senior official asked the chief justice, "Do you believe in aliens?"

    Since Tyrest was aware of the intergalactic meddling of other races, he nodded his head. "No, they can't be trusted. I wrote the Tyrest Accord because of them. They tend to be judgmental of others and act as if they've committed no sins when the opposite is true."

    "That's because they're not enlightened like us," replied another official. "They're losers who cannot admit that no one is perfection incarnate and that it's hard work to be a good person."

    "I know they are," chuckled the chief justice, "They don't even realize that we have already won."

    "What?" asked Flywheels who wasn't paying attention.

    "One," replied the chief justice as he pointed towards the ground, nonchalantly. Suddenly, the chief justice reached for his subspace and pulled out a com-link. He spoke into it, forgoing his more "official" accent, and called for a space bridge. (The officials didn't notice, since they assumed he spoke normally without a fake accent.) After the call he said to the officials, "Everything is going according to plan, but return to Luna-1."

    "Why can't you stay here with us?" asked Flywheels, who had forgotten that Tyrest _lived_ in Luna-1.

    Tyrest paused. Although he was still a bit intoxicated, he knew better than to tell them the truth; that there was nothing left for him at the Sea of Rust. He had a horrible gut-feeling that the people of the Republic were on the verge of ruining everything he had worked so hard to achieve. He too had read the stars and they revealed to him that capital punishment was going to be revoked. He became unwell when it was confirmed but due to formalities, he was unable to express his outrage. At this point, his anger was quelled but there was nothing he could do to stop it. " _¡Viva la República!_ "

    A space bridge opened up, Tyrest bid farewell to the officials and walked through it. He arrived at Luna-1 within moments, and was swarmed by his large guards, golden mechs he nicknamed the legislators (because of their precision in executing the law.) The legislators then escorted him to the hot springs since he reeked of the herb.

    Walking down the hallways, he said to them, "I have done everything in my power to get the people out of poverty. They no longer live in ruins, there is no shortage of food, and crime does not exist. I did everything I could to keep them from going back to the poverty-stricken, crime-ridden, hellhole that the Republic used to be. It now exists in a delicate balance that still maintains its tranquility. But there are individuals willing to ruin this and others, the same inhabitants of the Republic, who agree. I am disappointed. All my efforts for nothing! Is this how a god feels like? Watching his creation actively trying to destroy itself? I cannot explain how I feel about what is going on. I just want to disappear. I don't know if it's because of heartbreak or shame. I no longer care what happens to them. I give up."

    The legislators frowned and quietly discussed among themselves of what to do. They had seen his health declining but were unsure of what to do. He had a tendency to misinterpret interventions as personal attacks. They decided the best course of action, for the moment, was to wash him and get him ready for dinner. As he was led down to the springs, surrounded by several legislators, he mumbled, "To become a god is the loneliest achievement of them all." Quietly, he accepted his fate as he wondered what he was going to have for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-explanatory but in this AU, Chief Justice Tyrest is from the city-state of Tyrest. According to him, he was named after the city-state/region of his birth so he wouldn't forget his heritage. (Which obviously he remembers since it was through his intervention because of the Tyrest Accord, which greatly improved the quality of life for its citizens.) Speaking of "region", the citizens themselves still consider Kalis and Tyrest as a single territory; the _Republic of Rust_. It was divided as part of the Tyrest Accord to give each faction its own city-state for the sake of fairness.
> 
> If you've ever read the Marvel comics, Flywheels arrives just in time with Trypticon to save the day against the zombie army. I just assume they were friends or something. Perhaps I should've gotten into detail how this happened.
> 
> The legislators in this AU are like their own dudes. XD


	14. Benefiting the Benefactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrest gets ready for dinner with the help of his legislators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the type of smutty introduction Tyrest was supposed to have back in [the previous chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/26156988), except back then I was too much of a coward to go through with it because of the dubcon elements associated with this chapter's plot. I ain't gonna go tag it, but I have been wanting to read some Tyrest/Legislators stuff for a long time and this...this is close-enough.

    As usual, Tyrest was taken to one of the underground springs near his villa. They reminded him of the hot-springs from Kalis; of home. One of the legislators unfastened the clips from Tyrest’s cape, while another removed the light-weight shoulder pauldrons. They neatly folded the cape and tossed it in a nearby linen basket. A third legislator swept Tyrest off his feet and carried him closer to the springs, catching him off-guard and startling him despite it being part of the same old routine. Though it was oddly comforting, to be held by a mech that was larger and clearly more powerful than he was.

    Normally, such a thing would scare him but he had no reason to distrust the legislator or any of the others for that matter. Although he barely understood what they told him, they all looked after him, ensuring his well-being and happiness, despite the latter practically being impossible. (No matter how hard he tried, he could never forget his conjunx’s untimely demise, and that haunted him. What was worse was that others didn’t seem to care about his conjunx disappearing. Rather than comforting him, they pressured him to remarry, which filled him with a strong sense of disgust. Fortunately, the legislators seemed to empathize with him and left him alone.)

    The legislator put him down on a table, while another went to fetch two cauldrons and filled them with the spring water. Due to the various perforations all over Tyrest’s body, he could not be submerged or showered. Instead, he was carefully given a sponge bath. Since he didn’t go out very much and always kept clean, it wasn’t too big a deal. What did annoy him, was that the legislators insisted to assist him in his complete bathing; literally not letting him lift a finger throughout the process. But he no reason to distrust them either. They were not like some of the mechs on Cybertron who seemed to want to lunge at him and run their hands all over his body. Not having weaponry of his own, their unwanted advances frightened him, even though he was usually twice their size.

    (Still, having no control over his own body made him uneasy.)

    Wanting to get it over with, three legislators were cleaning him with lightly damped sponges. Tyrest grimaced because his frame was sensitive to touch due to extensive nerve damage, especially around his perforations. Each touch was painful but at the same time, shamefully pleasurable. This was what made him the most uncomfortable; he always became aroused every time they bathed him and that filled him with shame. As far as he was concerned, it was likely the reason the legislators didn’t seem to have much respect for him; they probably saw him as a useless slut that they were forced to look after.

    One of the legislators started cleaning Tyrest’s crotch-plate. Very aroused at that point, he immediately retracted the crotch panel to reveal his soaking wet cloaca, since he had a tendency to be one of those so-called “valve-mechs”, a bot who preferred to be penetrated in the valve. The two legislators briefly exchanged glances. Since they were always prepared for any possible scenario, the one cleaning the crotch-plate put his sponge aside and proceeded to fondle him. It was a delicate task; a fine line between relieving his pent-up urges and traumatizing him when he was the most vulnerable. (The legislators found the scenario frustrating. As far as they were concerned, Tyrest was very chaste but also extremely prudish due to others’ unwanted advances in the past. A normal mech in his situation would have all of his urges satisfied immediately.) The legislator tugged at his external node gently, as Tyrest recoiled as he immediately orgasmed. The other legislator held Tyrest’s hand and comforted him. Tyrest frowned since he had no words to apologize for his lewd reactions. As soon as Tyrest was partially distracted, the third legislator pulled out a vibrator from a nearby drawer, and poured some lubricant over it. He then approached Tyrest and poured lubricant over his exposed valve.

    “No, not that!” cried Tyrest as soon as he felt the cool lube oozing down his hot valve and dripping down deep inside. It felt wrong for him to have his valve penetrated by someone other than his conjunx. He felt so guilty because he should have foreseen this outcome, but he did not. (He feared that he subconsciously desired it, but it was far from the truth.)

    The legislator holding his hand purred next to his ear, as if to say, “As if you have a choice…” He kissed Tyrest on the neck, as the legislator masturbating Tyrest spread his valve apart so he could be penetrated by the toy. As always, they waited for Tyrest to get used to the vibrator inside him, before turning it on.

    Tears ran down Tyrest’s face because the predicament always conflicted him. On one hand, he felt he was cheating on his conjunx and at the same time, having several legislators attend to his physical needs felt so natural; as it should be. Mostly due to the latter, his mixed feelings quickly became strong feelings of guilt and remorse.

    Sensing his distress, the legislator holding the vibrator turned it on. The sensation never failed to overwhelm Tyrest’s brain circuits. Fragged senseless, he overloaded multiple times in a row, before temporarily off-lining due to being overwhelmed. Satisfied with the outcome, the vibrator was removed and his genitals, as well as the rest of his body were gently rinsed clean. The three legislators dried him with some warm towels, which was enough to wake him back up. Tyrest didn’t seem to have any memory of the legislators fragging him and was in a cheerful mood because he felt refreshed.

    Tyrest was then escorted to the dining room were he was served a light dinner of steamed spinach, mashed potatoes, and deep-fried zucchini, alongside a tall glass of hibiscus tea. Satisfied and feeling very guiltless, he immediately began to eat. The food was delicious and Tyrest knew he was going to sleep well for the rest of the night. He asked for seconds and was served a slightly smaller ration, to satisfy his remaining appetite.

    Meanwhile, the legislators put several gummy polyhedral dice with their names written on it in a vat of salt-water. They discarded the unbalanced dice and replaced them with new ones. Once the dice were tested, they rolled them in lottery to see which one of the legislators would have the honor of masturbating Tyrest the next time he was given a bath or massage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU!Tyrest's guilt is mostly due to his empathy and how quickly he is to blame himself for things. And yes, he self-harms here too but it's mostly out of stress (like how some birds pluck out their own feathers) as opposed to self-flagellation like in MTMTE. 
> 
> There's also an obvious disconnect between him and his legislators. They are actually insecticons in this AU but that's because their body-types remind me of the insecticons from TFP. (They look like giant golden beetles to me. Think of them like those furries from RID 2015 where the robot-mode was animal-like and not their alt-mode.) And as a result, the legislators see Tyrest as their queen. Of course they expect their queen to be extremely horny, so Tyrest really has no reason to feel ashamed for asking to get fragged. They understand and are more than happy to accommodate him. 
> 
> And if you're wondering why I even contemplate this unusual headcanon, it's because there hasn't been any smut parody of Tyrest called something along the lines of "[The Fecund Moon](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Remain_in_Light_1_of_5:_The_Fecund_Moon)" or something about a breeding kink mentioned with him. Seriously, they said in the comics that he helped made the Cold Constructed bots, he was making babies and that's why I don't understand why this isn't a thing! Where are my breeding and pregnancy fics about Tyrest? There. I said it. I know this ain't what I'm describing either but like I said before, close-enough.


	15. Since you've been gone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathcobra tries to teach Liokaiser about the history of the Republic since he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't think of a good name for this chapter, but then I remembered the title of an old song by Kelly Clarkson [[x](https://youtu.be/R7UrFYvl5TE)].

    That evening, the Warworld had left the outskirts of Iacon and flew out of orbit. They were headed to the rendezvous site located in a distant star system. The trip was estimated to take about three weeks due to scheduled stops. After flying a reasonable distance away from Cybertron, the ship was put on autopilot.

    Deathcobra was put in charge to teach Dinoking and Liokaiser about modern history. Especially since the other Breastforce members mentioned that Liokaiser (and presumably Dinoking) had no interest in anything else other than the Sea of Rust. Since Deathcobra was a native inhabitant, he was expected to know. The problem was that it had been years since Deathcobra studied history and could barely remember what had happened. Fortunately, Stascream had given him a textbook to study from. (He had arranged for Skywarp to have it ready to give it to them as a parting gift.) So Deathcobra was in his room, trying to cram everything while Cobrabreast watched from his favorite vantage point.

    Cobrabreast hissed and Deathcobra said to him, “I’m so mad! So much corruption left unpunished and it made things worse. No wonder the chief justice wants to beat the scrap out of troublemakers. If I was him, I'd do the same.” Deathcobra continued to scribble down notes. “Holy frag! He lost his family in the Open Season Massacre too…He always mentions this in the televised speeches during the anniversary. This just makes things worse! I don’t know what to do with this information.”

    Cobrabreast stuck out his tongue.

    “You make a good point,” said Deathcobra, “Since I have now figured out his underlying motives, we can use this against him to avoid getting caught. But I’d feel bad about doing this. I can't betray someone I sympathize with.”

    Cobrabreast opened his mouth and rearranged his jaws.

    “That’s a good point too,” said Deathcobra, “We’re not trying to undermine the safety of our people, which is what he has fought for. This is about trading. Our technology hasn’t changed much in the past couple million years. You’re totally right about it being the Tyrest Accord’s fault.”

    Relieved, Deathcobra continued to write his lesson plan. He planned to teach Liokaiser first, but the problem was that Liokaiser was an intellectual and Deathcobra was practically illiterate compared to him. It was also a delicate situation, since Deathcobra found himself swayed by the texts and it seemed the Destrons were wrong about a lot of things. He couldn’t use his hypnosis on Liokaiser either, since Hellbat was a component and abilities were magnified. Part of him felt that teaching the combiners was a punishment from the Emperor because he chose not to participate.

    Gathering his materials, he went to the loading docks where Liokaiser was waiting for him. Before Deathcobra spoke, Liokaiser asked him, “Is it true you are from the Republic?”

    “Yeah,” replied Deathcobra.

    Liokaiser seemed impressed and a bit relieved. Confused in regards to his components’ emotions, Liokaiser felt like they were planning on doing something bad with him and had kidnapped him along with his friend. “What part are you from?”

    “Tyrest,” said Deathcobra. “I think the specific area changed names. Nowadays, it is called the 'Highland District'.”

    “I think I remember,” said Liokaiser. He projected a map of the ancient Republic of Rust onto the wall. And showed him the approximate area of the Highland District. It was still the same. “I have a question, how come most of the ones involved in my revival are foreigners?”

    “Because they were the only ones who know how to do it,” said Deathcobra. “There was also the need for cooperative teams with close bonds. Since this was done in such short notice, he recruited the best mechs available.”

    Kaiser side-eyed the Breastforce components, they were constantly in disagreement and lacked faith in their leader, Leozack. He understood that such closely bonded teams were difficult to find and because of this, Deathcobra’s words were reasonable. However that didn’t justify the fact that his team was made up of nothing but thieves and con-artists, many of them absolutely unrepentant of their crimes.

    The components looked at Deathcobra nervously. Deathcobra was always difficult to read.

    Deathcobra said, “Let me tell you a story; decades before the illustrious Golden Age, the Republic of Rust was under the rule of a brutal dictator. Around that same time, there were rumors of a doomsday prophecy claiming that a cervine citizen was going to unleash dark forces. Wanting to look ‘good’ to the other neighboring rulers, this despot ordered a ‘cleansing’ of these people. Innocent people were targeted. Even others who attempted to save them like my sire. I saw how he died too; he was shot in the back of the head and it went through his eye. His head nearly exploded. It was so bad that we had to have a closed-casket funeral for him. I was a sparkling. This traumatized me. I'm an old bitter mech now, but I still remember it vividly.”

    “So that is the reason you turned to a life of crime?” asked Liokaiser.

    “No,” said Deathcobra, “We needed to survive and inflation made it difficult. Also, I wanted to forget the pain of losing him.”

    The breastforce looked at Kaiser, who seemed to have let his guard down by taking pity on Deathcobra. To be fair, the others had become delinquents out of necessity too.

    Deathcobra continued to explain how horrible it was living during that time. Nothing had changed until early on in the war. The two faction leaders, Optimus Prime and Megatron, met in Tyrest in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty. The intermediary was a lawyer, a native Tyrestan, who fought for protection of the poor and had previously helped to evacuate neutral/unaffiliated refugees from Cybertron.

    As far as the Decepticon/Tyrestan propaganda was concerned, Optimus Prime was being difficult to negotiate with. He believed that the treaty the lawyer had drafted was unfair since it did not solely favor the Autobots. At one point, he punched his defenseless strategist and nearly defenestrated him, but Megatron and the lawyer had intervened. In the end, both Optimus Prime and Megatron partially agreed to the lawyer's terms. Since the lawyer pushed for a protected neutral area, they decided that the Republic of Rust would be this area. Tyrest was given to the Decepticons and Kalis was given to the Autobots. To reward the lawyer for his success, Optimus Prime (with nudging of both Megatron and the Matrix) appointed the lawyer as chief justice and made him in charge of the Tyrest Accord.

    “That's very interesting,” said Liokaiser, “Something still bugs me, what was the lawyer's name?”

    Deathcobra froze. Cobrabreast opened his mouth, as if to say to his partner, “Don't ask me.”

    Thinking fast, Guyhawk said, “I thought his name was Adjudicus.”

    “What kind of stupid name is _that_?!” asked Deathcobra, suddenly coming to his senses upon hearing the peculiar name. “No real Tyrestan would _ever_ name their kid like _that_. Hell, 'Bong Ripper', 'Vapemaster', and 'Toketron' are more plausible names. I think his name is actually 'Tyrest' now that I think about it. He gave a speech once on TV and said his dam gave him that name so he would never forget his heritage.”

    “I don't know…” said Leozack, “Adjudicus makes more sense to me. Who names their kid after a _city-state_?”

    “Stoners,” said Jaruga, who quickly turned to Kaiser, “no offense. But stoners, definitely stoners.”

    “Wait a minute…” gasped Killbison, “Does this mean the DJD are a bunch of stoners too? They're all named after the first five city-states that turned Decepticon and as far as I know, they don't really do anything. Seriously? When was the last time we heard of them going after traitors? If they did their job instead of smoking, the war would've ended much sooner because we'd be more organized since the traitors were efficiently disposed of. They have to be, there's no other explanation.”

    Guyhawk audibly rolled his eyes, “Those are code-names you fool!”

    “That's enough, I want to continue hearing more about this,” said Liokaiser, “I'm happy that things have been improving.”

    Deathcobra continued with the lesson for about 20 more minutes. Happy that it went well, Deathcobra went back to his room and passed out on the bed. Teaching was too stressful for him.

    Cobrabreast climbed on his back and licked him, telling him, “You did a good job.”

    “Thanks,” chuckled Deathcobra, who was about to fall asleep but Cobrabreast woke him up. He needed to brush his teeth or else his fangs would get infected. After brushing his teeth, Deathcobra resumed his sleep.

    Meanwhile, Liokaiser was too excited to fall asleep after what he had heard. In an empty storage unit, he was lying on the ground next to Dinoking, telling him about it. Dinoking, who believed the past stays in the past, was more than happy to hear about it. Both gestalts' components, except for the city guardians, were exhausted and had fallen asleep.

    Liokaiser flashed his projection on the ceiling, showing him the different images he had seen in the textbook and newspaper clippings Deathcobra had. Upon seeing the chief justice's face, Dinoking let out an outraged gasped, “Who put that mech in charge?”

    “Optimus Prime,” replied Liokaiser.

    “He is a fool!” replied Dinoking, “And why aren't you outraged like me? Don't you remember that mechs like him, with those 'crowned' helms, were slaves of Quintessons? Or at least were easily manipulated by them like puppets? He is unfit to be in charge of the well-being of the Republic and this supposed peace treaty/weapons ban. I can see why the Emperor would be against him.”

    “You make a good point,” said Liokaiser, “But it's also unfair to judge a mech on his appearance and function. The chief justice was born long after those damned Quintessons were driven from Cybertron and from what I read about him, he's very racist against Quintessons even though he has never seen one in person. Although, I don't agree with the brainwashing of civilians to 'speed up' their recovery from their criminal ways. But the rest of what he tried to do for the Republic was good.”

    “Hm…” replied Dinoking, “If you put it that way, he's just some benign mech who just gets in the way. But I still don't trust him being in such a high-profile position. Those Quintessons might've gotten ideas about reclaiming their 'pet' – how I _hate_ having to refer to anyone like _that_. They probably have an elaborate plan on how to do this because of their 'calculations'. The way you described the Tyrest Accord, it would fall apart if the chief justice disappeared – whether it be from an assassination or because of those nasty-aft Quintessons kidnapping him for lewd purposes.”

    Liokaiser narrowed his eyes. Even though King had always been suspicious of others, he seemed a little too loyal to Deathsaurus. However, the Dinoforce was very loyal to Deathsaurus too and perhaps the loyalty rubbed off on King. Not to mention, King and the Dinoforce probably spent the day talking about how good Deathsaurus was to them all, so he believed them.

    They continued talking into the night and eventually drifted off to sleep while still holding hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megatron was the one who threw the tantrum during the negotiation phase of the Tyrest Accord. He beat up Starscream. But since the Tyrestan government doesn't want to cause trouble with Megatron, who was actually unhappy about the agreement at the time, they decided to change the story a bit and the people believed it. To this day, they still believe Megatron is a good just leader for his cause. His poetry is very popular there and even has a dedicated comprehensive course that is offered in Tyrest University. Megatron's positive reception eventually softened his stance on the situation; it was more or less what he had hoped to originally achieve under his rule. Although he is welcome to visit whenever he likes, he doesn't do so very often due to his duties as the Decepticon leader.
> 
> You could also argue that the Tyrestan perspective of Optimus Prime is that they see him as a cross between IDW Optimus and Bayverse Optimus rather than TFP or even the classic G1 Optimus, AKA "Dad Optimus".


	16. Diamond thrones near the shore of bones.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathcobra can't stop thinking about Flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally, I think this is an odd chapter because it feels like a "re-cap" episode and there is no dialogue since it's so summary driven. **You can skip this chapter if you don't really care about the main ship** (Flame/Deathcobra) since it is inherently cracky at its core. This is practically a bullshitted essay as to why it is logically _a thing_ in this universe.
> 
> Part of the title comes from The White Panda’s “[Diamond Thrones](https://youtu.be/HIltA55GbRA)” remix.

    There is a belief among Cybertronians that one's sparkmate has a similar and complimentary marking on their body as a sign that they are indeed the one. However, Deathcobra dismissed this as nonsense. He and Flame looked nothing alike, and up until recently both has suspected the other to be their sparkmate but kept their suspicion to themselves. Deathcobra thought he was not good-enough, but that was due to his guilt-driven personality. Flame grew up never experiencing sincere love and dismissed his feelings as nothing more than a childish infatuation.

    Neither he nor Deathcobra remember who had suggested their relationship to manifest itself as physical. Deathcobra assumes he did. That fateful day he probably got too high, slapped Flame's aft, and greeted politely him before demanding that they frag. (This is how tankformers generally court each other and Deathcobra had done his research beforehand.) The truth was that Flame was the one who asked. Always sober and intolerant of anyone intoxicated, it was impossible for Flame to accept the advances of someone intoxicated. However, it also seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask, after all Deathcobra's inhibitions were lowered and Flame was in heat. Although it appeared to be a perfect plan, Flame felt immense guilt afterwards despite being shameless. Fortunately, the guilt was short-lived because a few days later, Deathcobra asked Flame for another rendezvous and this time he was sober.

* * *

    Since this recent departure, Deathcobra could not stop thinking about Flame. Aware that his feelings for Flame were sincere and reciprocated, thinking about Flame made him more anxious and guilt-ridden. The last couple of days he saw him, Flame looked exhausted and defeated, like he was dying. He was no longer the cheerfully smug asshole that he had fallen in love with. Deathcobra knew it had to have been the necromancy that was affecting him since it was such a strong psychic bond and Flame was controlling a very large excavation team. Had Deathcobra stayed behind, he would've personally made it his duty to stop Flame. But knowing his beloved smartass fire tank, Flame would've pointed out that Deathcobra personally benefited from the necromancy and that he had no right to denounce it. Nonetheless, he strongly regretted leaving and constantly replaying their last few days together kept him up at night.

    Meanwhile back at the excavation site, Flame continued to work almost without rest. A few days after Deathcobra had left, Flame had stumbled upon what appeared to be a burial pit. In fact, it was part of a trap set up to protect Vector Sigma's secret location. After all, those who helped bury it hoped that the Quintessons nor their allies would ever find it. Since the grave was huge and the fact the dead were essentially unaccounted for, Flame decided to use them as labor instead of the mummified corpses from the upper crypt, which were suitable for museums. This was what seemed to cause Flame's undoing.

    Deathcobra suspected that Flame's mind would be psychically altered and this proved to be true. He still wanted recognition, his motivations had shifted dramatically. No longer wanting to find Vector Sigma to satisfy his feeling of belonging, he wanted to find it for fame and fortune; a sentiment many of the would-be thieves felt when they searched for Vector Sigma only for never to return. (Because they were killed or maimed by the traps and fell into the pit.) Perhaps it was due to the fact that some of the thieves were foreigners, but Flame grew to resent Kalis and the Republic of Rust even more. Since Iacon (as well as Crystal City) had been idolized and coveted by many Cybertronians alike, Flame longed to return to his real homeland with his newfound fame and fortune. As for Deathcobra, Flame planned to take him to Iacon to live with him too.

    Although money doesn't buy happiness because it could also cause stress and in-fighting, Flame didn't see how it would impede him from bribing away Deathcobra's guilt with it. Sure Deathcobra had some odd daddy-issues, but Deathcobra wouldn't deny that his [dead] sire would be happy that Deathcobra finally found someone who'd take care of him and keep him out of trouble. (But Deathcobra would probably still feel guilty because Flame desecrated a holy site for his secular interests and his sire would probably come back from the dead without necromancy to personally disown him.)

    In his latest dream, Deathcobra saw Flame at what appeared to be the in the temple complex around Vector Sigma. He was accompanied by a small band of pilgrims, one of them appearing like Flame's subordinate. They were sleeping next to a camp fire which emitted healing energies. Flame was the first to wake up and noticed Deathcobra right away. However, rather than greet him like a normal person he began to sing an old Tyrestan love song in Primal Vernacular. Deathcobra had heard the song before but couldn't remember where. Despite this, he sang his verse and both quietly continued with their duet until Deathcobra walked close-enough to hold Flame's delicate hands. Although it sounded like a superstition that sparkmates could easily harmonize in song, it wasn't. Pleasant-sounding duets between lovers (especially those who do not sing like Deathcobra) were completely undeniable facts because they are heard and the recordings [with permission] were analyzed. Lovers instinctively changing their respective pitches to sound sweet was an extremely complex and intimate act. Often recording such a song carried the same connotations as recording a sex tape.

    But the dream's sweetness didn't last. Deathcobra suddenly remembered that dreams only reflect what he had in mind. In his case, it was longing a reunion with Flame who was seemingly unaffected by the necromancy. Realizing it was nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy, Deathcobra woke up. (Besides, someone who was as irredeemable as he was doesn't deserve such a happy ending. Yet, he didn't deserve a second chance at life either and still got it.) 

    Gently moving Cobrabreast aside, Deathcobra went to brush his teeth. It was then when he remembered where he had heard the song he heard in the dream; his parents used to sing it together randomly. At that, he broke down into inconsolable sobbing. Fortunately, the walls of the new ship were so thick that only Cobrabreast heard his cries, woken up by them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if this would make the ending better or worse, but Deathcobra is the only one in his family who is still not over his father's death. His own mother, who was his father's sparkmate, is at peace with it. 
> 
> "Shore of Bones" or "Bone Shore" is apparently the Neocybex translation of Kalis' literal name (Ka = bone. Lis = shore.) At least based on this AU's arbitrary rules of grammar.


	17. A chaotic association.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deathsaurs holds a meeting with the Breastforce and Goryu, leader of the Dinoforce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets a little lewd towards the end.

    Still upset about leaving Flame, Deathcobra left his room and headed outside. Sitting outside of the Warworld while it was cruising through space, tethered and wearing anti-gravity boots, Deathcobra finally felt at ease. He wasn’t used to being inside a ship for so long and preferred to be outside, or at least this is what he tried to convince himself. Snapping his fingers, he ignited a blunt he carried on him and took a hit; nonchalantly disobeying the laws of science, just like he did the laws of mechs.

    Just then, the door opened and Hellbat stuck his head out, “Hey Deathcobra! The emperor wants to talk to – what the…?”

    Annoyed, Deathcobra said, “Damn it, Batsy! Why’d you have to ruin the mood?”

    “You are smoking,” said Hellbat, too shocked to berate him for calling him ‘Batsy’. “You are smoking  _in space_.”

    “Yeah, so?” asked Deathcobra, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

    “It’s impossible to smoke in space because fire needs oxygen in order to combust,” said Hellbat, becoming increasingly agitated.

    It took a while for it to dawn on Deathcobra that Hellbat was right. (To be fair, Deathcobra was one of the more uneducated of the Destrons.) “Sweet…”

    “It’s not ‘sweet’!” snapped Hellbat. “Only someone affiliated with Unicron would be able to pull off chaotic bullshit like that!”

    “Is that so?” Asked Deathcobra, as he side-eyed Hellbat, “I thought Unicron's affiliates were the only ones capable of using such vulgar language…”

    Frightened, Hellbat cried, “Just get back in here! The emperor will get mad.”

    “Fine,” said Deathcobra, rolling his eyes as he put out his blunt. He walked up to the door and got inside, before locking it up. As he and Hellbat walked down the hallway, Deathcobra asked, “How would you know about Unicron?”

    “Because of a cousin,” replied Hellbat, “I had to do some questionable favors for him before I landed this gig. It seems those favors have affected me despite not dabbling in anything directly. What about you?”

    Deathcobra ejected Cobrabreast from his chassis to reveal the scar where he was impaled. He didn’t need to say anything because Hellbat collapsed. Deathcobra caught Hellbat and helped him to the ground. Since their emperor was strict with tardiness, Deathcobra hurried to transform Hellbat and pushed him to the meeting room.

    They were the first to arrive and Deathcobra hurried to transform Hellbat back into robot-mode and sat him up on a chair. Since he was still knocked out, Deathcobra decided to make him slump over like he was taking a nap. Neither of them waited much since Leozack and Lyzack entered the room.

    Smiling, Lyzack said to Deathcobra, "I have intercepted an audio message directed to one of those Tyrest Accord enforcers. But I have no idea what that guy is saying. He sounds like he's from the Sea of Rust, just like you. So I was wondering if you could please help me translate it. Please?"

    "Alright," he replied as he observed her take out her recorder. Leozack decided to take a seat next to Hellbat and right away noticed something was wrong but he tried his best to be as discrete as possible as to not alarm the others.

    After fiddling around with the recorder, finally Lyzack played back the recording. A soft, sensual voice spoke, "Take it to the zones… _inter_ -zones…on a dare…on a  _double_  dare…to fight the aliens….Those who have alienated the planet….If you do not believe in the aliens…then believe in demons from Hell….What is the  _difference_!? Where is Ultra Magnus? …Let's ask him…etc.,.ok.,.."

    Deathcobra translated it word for word and explained the voice had indeed spoken in a Tyrestan accent. However, he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Lyzack that the person who spoke was actually the chief justice himself. As a Tyrestan, Deathcobra had the privilege of hearing the chief justice speak and he sounded nothing like those menacing, garbled recordings everyone else was used to hearing.

    "What is this mech smoking and where can I get some?" asked Lyzack, who had been sick due to the space travel. "Also, what is this message doing in the Tyrest Accord frequency?"

    Without a second thought, Deathcobra pulled out a joint from his subspace and offered it to Lyzack. Lyzack's eyes dilated upon seeing it in his hand and she politely declined. She had no doubt that, that was the answer to her question.

    "That's...the chief justice," replied Deathcobra, as he put away the joint. "He sounds  _enlightened_."

    Lyzack was in disbelief. The chief justice was a cold, cruel, and lawful mech, who had no tolerance for any type of illegal activities. It seemed highly hypocritical for him to be getting high. But at the same time she wasn't surprised, many mechs in powerful positions were extremely corrupt. Before she could voice her opinion, Deathcobra said, "The herb is legal in Tyrest, Kalis, and Luna-1 for medical, spiritual, and recreational use."

    "I don't like this mech," she replied with her eyes narrowing. 

    "Understandable," replied Deathcobra, "My opinions about him are very strong and very mixed as well. No one can deny the good he has done for my people but his methods…”

    “What about them?” asked Lyzack.

    “…People I once knew are no longer the same,” replied Deathcobra, “they all had their minds tampered with. It seems it was to erase their desires to commit crimes but I don't blame the chief justice for it. It's hard to change and many people are unwilling, so it had to be done by force for fast results. It's inhumane and…and wrong.”

    Leozack shrugged, “I don't know, that sounds pretty Decepticon to me…I mean, without having to resort to murder, which I love. That's like the kind of 'peaceful tyranny' Megatron spoke fondly about and made me want join the cause.”

    Deathcobra turned to look at Lyzack, who agreed. In fact, she already started liking the chief justice. All she knew was that he always sent his subordinates to thwart the emperor's schemes.

    Deathcobra sighed and sat down across from Leozack. Moments later, Hellbat woke up and tried to sit up straight. At that time, the rest of the Destrons and Goryu arrived at the meeting. Followed by the emperor and empress who waited for the others to be seated before starting the meeting.

    Deathsaurus handed Hellbat a large wad of cash, he pulled out of his subspace. Without hesitation, Hellbat took the money, shuffled it and quickly divided the stacks according to their perspective amounts. It was the first time Deathcobra had seen Hellbat count and nearly fell out of his chair, impressed by Hellbat’s speed.

    Smiling, Hellbat said to Deathsaurus, “Emperor, the stacks total to $4569.”

    “That’s what I thought, thank you,” said Deathsaurus, who took the money and stored it in his subspace.

    Deathcobra looked at Leozack, hoping his friend would give him an explanation but Leozack was speechless. The fact it took about 20 seconds for Hellbat to count and sort everything, never failed to astonish him. Despite his awkwardness, Hellbat was an invaluable member of the Destrons because like all batformers, he was exceptional at math. Deathsaurus and Esmeral trusted him in double-checking their own math and to keep track of the inventory.

    However, since the explosion of their previous ship the Thunder Arrow, any sudden noise made Hellbat lose count…even caused him to have breakdowns, which sometimes took at least half an hour for him to recover. Even so, Hellbat had not recovered from the fact that Deathcobra was once an undead thrall. From the looks of Leozack's usual demeanor, Deathcobra had not told him about it and had no plans to do so. Leozack loved Deathcobra for his stern and stoic demeanor, and the fact that he has worked so hard to better himself. Leozack would become hysterical if something terrible happened to Deathcobra.

    It appeared that Deathcobra loved Leozack too, but as his friend. Whoever's valve he was tapping back in Tyrest kept him loyal. Like the others, Hellbat wasn't familiar with Flame or Deathcobra's relationship with him. Hellbat's train of thought was interrupted when Esmeral tossed a medium-sized sack full of coins in front of him.

    The sudden noise spooked him, but he instantly recovered. Killbison was quick to throw Hellbat some other bags for him to place the divided coins. Hellbat's natural fixation with counting relaxed him as he worked diligently to sort the money into the bags, after he finished inserting them into the tubes.

    Deathsaurus continued to speak and didn't mind if Hellbat tuned him out as he worked quietly. “We are getting closer to our rendezvous with those aliens. However, I am concerned with the bonding as combiner teams, in particular Liozack's team. Unlike the Dinoforce, all of you are stowed away in your rooms on your downtime instead of getting to know each other more intimately.

    “With all due respect, Sir,” interrupted Goryu, “are you suggesting they should all interface with each other for the sake of camaraderie?”

    “Not what I had in mind, but I like your idea,” replied Deathsaurus. “The combiner team I once knew did that occasionally. It was a pure and beautiful thing.”

    Guyhawk raised an eyebrow, he never pegged his beloved emperor as one who'd indulge in voyeurism. Although, he remembered some of Deathsaurus' previous anecdotes and it seemed more likely that Deathsaurus was an active participant (so it technically wasn't voyeurism at all). However, this raised many questions and he wondered if the Dinoforce had bonded like this too. Goryu wasn't that stupid and knew exactly what Guyhawk was thinking. He didn't mind his associate’s lewd thoughts, but it did explain why the Breastforce was so dysfunctional.

    “The teams need to be more unified than ever,” said Deathsaurus, “there's no telling what strange machinations those aliens have in store for us.”

    Killbison raised his hand, “If you don't trust them, then why are we even dealing with them?”

    “It's not that I distrust them, I trust my son's intuition more,” replied Deathsaurus, “Solon is nervous about this deal. As you may know, sparklings are more sensitive in detecting malevolence. That's why it would be prudent for all of us to be on guard and better prepared. So please, I need you all to be closer for this to work.”

    “$3929.44,” interrupted Hellbat as he finished counting the coins. “The total is $8498.44 in cash. We're still doing good.”

    It was an understatement. Given their other expenses and other money in their reserves, gave the Destrons a profit of $5 for this month, so far. But least they were no longer indebted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it wasn't clear, the random math is because of the vampiric compulsion to count, according to folklore. Also to explain why Deathsaurus would keep Hellbat around, despite not being a brave, stoic and serious soldier like Deathcobra.
> 
> As for Deathcobra, he's rarely been outside of Cybertron's orbit and doesn't know too much about science to remember it was impossible to smoke in space. He smoked on the ship when it traveled across Cybertron, so it wasn't a big deal to him. And yes, anyone associated with Unicron can easily say "Fuck." It's something to keep in mind if you read any other additional stories set in this AU.
> 
> Finally, the "inter-zones" was loosely based on some spambot posts I saw on Tumblr, so I copied that without asking. I can't seem to find the account, perhaps it was terminated. :/


	18. The Beguiling Benefactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esmeral and Deathsaurus talk about the chief justice and then, the chief justice acts like himself in the comfort of his own home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't obvious-enough, most of the main protagonists in this story are Decepticons and therefore many of them believe they are on the "good side". As a result, they will speak ill about the Autobots and see their faction as corrupt/evil. So if you're one of those fans who stans Autobots/get defensive about the Autobots, proceed with caution.

    Deathsaurus called Esmeral to their quarters. Fascinated by the meeting's change in topic, he decided to plan something nice for his wife. When she entered the room, he walked up to her and kissed her on the cheek. Not realizing that her husband was intending to be romantic, because this was a common occurrence, Esmeral said to him, “I’m so glad we have the evening to ourselves. Lyzack has informed me that the message she discovered in the Tyrest Accord’s frequency appears to be a cryptic message.”

    Before Deathsaurus had a chance to answer, she played the recording for him.

    “It’s him. The chief justice,” replied Deathsaurus. It was the first time he had heard chief justice’s unedited voice so clearly.

    “What?” asked Esmeral, nearly dropping the recorder but catching it quickly.

    “It is his natural voice,” replied Deathsaurus. “The way he talks in ‘official’ messages is garbled, unnatural, and almost inaudible. I think its shocking that many people believe _that_  is his real voice when it sounds like it’s been heavily filtered. Out of curiosity, I once tried to see if I could remove the filters from it. There had to be a good reason why he would do this.” Deathsaurus pulled out his his recorder.

    "I thought it was because the telephone system is bad," replied Esmeral. "Like that one time we had to call the DJD."

    “Please don’t remind me,” sighed Deathsaurus. “I understand there’s likely a good reason that we were placed on hold; to test our abilities because what decent person would enjoy that so-called ‘music’? However, it’s inefficient because what if a report is an emergency?”

    Esmeral didn’t mind the hold music (in fact, she thought it was cute) but then she wasn’t an expert on the subject like Deathsaurus, who used to be friends with a talented musician. She did, however, dislike the long wait time because interstellar calls were expensive.

    Deathsaurus proceeded to play the recording for his wife.

    “Lockdown, you and your crew must report to Luna-1 immediately,” said the chief justice. His sensual voice sounded almost identical to Lyzack’s recording, except he spoke with an Iaconian accent.

    In the recording, Lockdown replied, “May I ask why? We are currently investigating Scorponok’s last whereabouts.”

    “Do not worry about it,” said the chief justice, “message me your coordinates and I will relay them to Ultra Magnus to resume the search. It is important for you all to come to Luna-1 at once, it deals with your salary. For obvious reasons, I cannot discuss this matter much further over the phone like this. I hope to see you all very soon. Goodbye.”

    “I can see why he would go to great lengths to disguise it,” said Esmeral, “a voice like that makes anyone wet. And here I thought that he probably sounded too nasally, or that his voice was too squeaky.”

    “Close but not quite,” said Deathsaurus, “He’s a QIU, one of those rare harem – courtesan bots. It’s even obvious in the photos too which are also heavily edited. They don’t disguise the crown-like helm which is a distinct feature of the breed. I don’t blame him for going through such great lengths. Are you familiar with Emirate Xaaron, chairman of the Autobot High Council?”

    “No,” replied Esmeral, “Is he that large violet and yellow, busty tankformer with a large purple crest, and regal presence?”

    Deathsaurus showed him a photo of the emirate, who was clearly a small, lovely, inoffensive yellow tankformer with a crown-like helm.

    “What?!” asked Esmeral, “I thought that was Xaaron’s spouse or at least his favorite concubine. I assumed that was the case because that's what old-timey warlords did and like, the Autobots are fascists with backwards ideologies. Oh… _Oh_ … _OH_ …NO! I had heard rumors about one of the Autobot High Councilmembers rising to their ranks with his promiscuity. I just wasn’t sure of the name and I didn’t think it was that one. I especially didn't think it was that yellow bot either, he doesn't even look like he'd do such a thing.”

    “Unfortunately, this is legitimate Decepticon propaganda; a calculated smear campaign,” said Deathsaurus, “To be honest, I believed it too and so did Starscream, until he found out the truth. Starscream said he was the most moral of the High Council-members and extremely chaste. Or at least, he would scold anyone who tried to flirt with him, telling them it was inappropriate. I can only imagine what kind of backlash the chief justice might have when it seems he is siding with the Autobots instead of us. I know some people who'd become depressed over those sorts of attacks on their character.” Sensing his wife’s confusion, Deathsaurus added, “Just because I can sympathize with him, doesn’t mean I agree with him. One of the first things I was taught when I was training as a proper swordsman was to understand my enemies. Since many of his laws stand in the way of our goals, it was essential that I understand who he is as a person. That way I can figure out his next move and hopefully circumvent the restrictions.”

    “So, do you like him or hate him? I’m lost dear,” replied Esmeral, already confused because a lot of things she thought to be true were nothing but lies, “I’m sorry.”

    “I hate him because I can never be able to challenge him to a duel,” said Deathsaurus. “Being a QIU, he’s incapable of fighting because personally battering someone goes against his very nature. Yes, I can easily defeat him in combat but he’s defenseless and there is no honor in beating someone who is incapable of fighting back. Sure, he could have his best warrior fight on his behalf but it’s not the same. I’m convinced that this is the reason why both Optimus Prime and Lord Megatron agreed to appoint him, specifically, as chief justice. Anyone who dares challenge him formally to demand satisfaction, will look like a dishonorable fool. It haunts me, Esmeral.”

    Esmeral, on the other hand, thought Deathsaurus was exaggerating the complexity of the situation. But at the same time, she had once tried to read the entirety of the Tyrest Accord herself, only to end up with a massive headache. Perhaps, her husband had a point and his view of the chief justice was rational. 

    Meanwhile, the chief justice was lounging comfortably on a beanbag chair in his villa. A legislator approached him and sat next to him. The chief justice was always captivated by the fact the legislators seemed to know exactly what he wanted without having to say a word. In this case, he wanted someone to talk to.

    “What do you think?” asked the chief justice as he stroked his long chin. “The Galactic Federation has contacted me, regarding allying with my neutral faction. As you may have recalled, The Galactic Federation, initially formed due to response to our Great War that’s apparently lasted for ‘millions of years’…whatever that means.”

    The legislator grumbled softly as the chief justice listened.

    “That’s exactly what I thought,” replied the chief justice. “No good can come with forging ‘alliances’ with organics. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t alone in this decision. I can’t think clearly anymore, my friend. Not sure if it is the lack of sleep or the fact everything is going down the metaphorical drain.”

    Just then, other legislators entered the room. The one who had been speaking with the chief justice got up and started to dance. The others danced in response as the chief justice observed them. Though he had been with them for years, the chief justice barely understood their choreographic language. He knew they were talking about him, in the way they straightened their fingers.

    Finally, another legislator purred, and it seemed that they were also in agreement. The chief justice then wrote back to The Galactic Federation, declining their offer. He then sent mass emails to his employees to decline such offers from them. His main concern was that The Galactic Federation was going to use the Tyrest Accord against the Cybertronian people, since they had always been hostile towards them. He hadn’t put down his tablet yet, when the legislators were offering him tea and his favorite light blanket, which was exactly what he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The DJD Traitor Hotline** is a telephone service set up by the DJD for fellow Decepticons to report alleged cases of treachery. Mostly out of convenience for the team, but also because the fact that it exists helps deter traitors from even thinking about betraying the Decepticon Cause. But since Tarn is also an aspiring producer, he likes to use it as another platform for others to hear his custom-made remixes which he uses as the hold music. And no, his intentions aren't to torture or "test" callers, he just genuinely wants people to listen to his music. Deathsaurus just happens to be a music snob.
> 
>  **QIUs** (Quintesson Interface Units) are basically a sex-slave breed of TF in this AU, bred by the Quintessons for that purpose. Most are physically incapable of combat due to a defective battle computer. (The battle computer is the organ that helps control their fight and flight response.) This can be cured with a transplant or complete reformatting but both processes are quite risky and not worth it. Most QIUs, like the chief justice and the emirate, live happily and mostly unbothered by their defect.
> 
> I don't remember if this was explained in a previous, but Tyrest has no control over the legislators in this story. And yes, I had intended for that to be an unsettling fact and I failed horribly to convey that, so it seems kind of cute instead. XD


	19. The Lion's Paw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esmeral goes to Lyzack's and Leozack's shared hab-suite, while Leozack is away, in order to assist her subordinate. However, it is soon apparent that Esmeral is the one needing assistance from Lyzack instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains femslash with robot boobs...sort of? So if you're not into this, please skip. But if you are into this (or think you might like it), please proceed. X3
> 
> Also, please note that there is no cheating/infidelity involved in this even though Esmeral isn't Lyzack's conjunx endura, but her amica endura instead. Actually, all of the Destrons are amica endurae with each other, so casual interface between them is socially acceptable...at least that's how it is in this AU's version of Caminus. Esmeral, being a Camien, obviously shared her customs with the others who happily accepted them and integrated them into their daily lives.

    Esmeral was close to falling asleep when she felt her phone vibrate. Carefully, she got out of bed as to not wake her husband and his drones. Stepping into the bathroom, she answered and it was Lyzack. Concerned, Esmeral whispered, “Yes, Lyzack?”

    “I'm so sorry to wake you up, but I'm not feeling well,” said Lyzack, laying in bed with her legs spread apart, “may you please come to my room? Ahh…I will explain everything, please come by.” She got her left hand and pressed against her valve panel.

    “Very well,” said Esmeral, thinking about what could possibly be wrong with Lyzack. She hung up and put back her phone in her subspace, before heading to Lyzack's room.

    Lyzack was waiting for her outside the room, with her legs crossed. Seeing Esmeral, she said, “Please come in, my Empress, my brother is away.” Lyzack opened the door to let Esmeral inside.

    As soon as Lyzack closed the door, Esmeral slipped her fingers in between Lyzack's legs and felt up her valve panel. Lyzack squealed, unable to handle the sensation. Esmeral pulled her hand away and asked, “I know it's been a while but you should've told me earlier, you naughty kitten.”

    “You mis…misunderstand,” gasped Lyzack, “I was playing on my laptop when my valve and external node started trembling. I think my brother is having his fun with the rest of the Breastforce and as his twin, I feel it too, but it's no fun for me.”

    “I'm sure the others must've convinced him to stay,” said Esmeral, as she knelt on the floor. “Open up.”

    Lyzack spread her legs apart as Esmeral crouched down and lightly licked Lyzack's valve panel, automatically retracting it with the slightest touch. Lyzack's valve was soaking wet and flushed pink. (From the looks of it, whatever Leozack was doing was overwhelming for Lyzack.) Esmeral licked the trembling valve vigorously, as if to clean off the fluids.

    “Oh dear Primus!” gasped Lyzack, as she felt close to cumming.

    With a cheeky grin, Esmeral slipped her tongue inside Lyzack's valve and kissed Lyzack on her labial folds, practically making out with her. Lyzack came twice in a row, in rapid succession. Esmeral's Camien techniques were both her weakness and guilty pleasure. Esmeral put her hands on Lyzack's thighs and reclined back until her own back was to the floor and Lyzack was sitting on her face, all while still eating out the delicious pussy.

    It took a while to realize what had happened, when Lyzack said, “No!” hurrying to get off of Esmeral, feeling bad for sitting on her face. “I didn't mean to sit on your face.”

    “If you intend to apologize, you have to appease me first,” said Esmeral, who then exposed her vulnerable breasts at her.

    Lyzacks' eyes widened, in her opinion, Esmeral had the most beautiful breasts among the Destrons. They were so big and soft (and the latter was why they were so vulnerable.) Lyzack ran her fingers along Esmeral's nipples, watching them become erect from the sensation. Esmeral retained her haughty and dignified look as her subordinate happily fondled her breasts. She preferred when Lyzack did it. Something about a femme's touch felt so right and so good. Whereas she felt completely terrified when Deathsaurus did it. Although he was always gentle with her, she couldn't help but sense his immense power since his grip was always so firm; capable of destroying her at a whim and as a result, easily dominating her due to fear.

    Esmeral purred softly, “You are forgiven.” However, Lyzack didn't hear her and latched onto her right breast, as she continued to tease the left. Esmeral felt her external node harden as soon as Lyzack began sucking. “Lyzack, I order you to stop!” Hesitating, Lyzack let go only to begin sucking on the other breast instead. “That…that is not what I meant!”

    The Empress' stammering meant that she enjoyed the sensation. (Which she did.) To Lyzack, it would be disrespectful to leave her beloved Empress unsatisfied. After sucking on the breast for about the same amount of time as the other, Lyzack buried her face in between Esmeral's cleavage while gingerly rubbing her fingers along Esmeral's areolas.

    Esmeral's face went red and she cried, “Get you face out of there!”

    Lyzack pulled her head out as Esmeral tried her best to cover her breasts, but they were so big that her delicate feminine arms couldn't cover them up. Unfortunately, her breasts were too aroused and heavy for her to retract them into her chest plating.

    “What if I suck here?” asked Lyzack as she noticed Esmeral's exposed valve and pointed at the erect node.

    “Don't!” hissed Esmeral as she did nothing while Lyzack spread her legs apart.

    “I know,” said Lyzack as she looked through her subspace and pulled out a long pink double-ended frag toy with soft bristly bumps on the sides. The toy was larger on one side and smaller on the other, perfect for couples with a notable size difference like them.

    Esmeral tried to stare down Lyzack, in order to intimidate her from going any further, but her sincere gaze and flooding valve practically _begged_ Lyzack to continue. It had been too long since Esmeral had interfaced with her subordinate, that her entire body craved for it. Lyzack inserted the smaller end of the toy into her own valve, and then proceeded to penetrate Esmeral with the other end. Lyzack moved her hips back and forth, humping Esmeral slowly but firmly.

    Unable to restrain herself, Esmeral let out a moan. Realizing what she had done, she said, “Please don't tell my beloved Emperor. If he finds out what we've done…”

    “…But loves us all and wants us to love each other,” said Lyzack as she pounded deeper into Esmeral, taken aback by Esmeral's words and sudden change in demeanor.

    “I… I know but…ooohhh…he will tease me about it,” gasped Esmeral, “…that such a big and powerful dragoness let…herself be dominated by a little lioness.” She didn't want to admit that she was the one who teased her husband the most in bed and she knew that he would take the right opportunity to tease her back. To her, it was only cute if she did it to him but not if he did it to her. Esmeral let go of her breasts since her nipples kept getting more and more erect as they rubbed against anything, including her arms. “You just don't…you just don't understand how mean he could be.”

    Lyzack perked up her ears and then realized that Esmeral was grinding her hips along with her. Lyzack instantly regretted not using her spike on her. Esmeral's tight and eager valve would've felt like a dream. However, Esmeral refused to be penetrated by anyone other than her husband. It was a deeply instilled Camien custom that she couldn't let go of; penetration was only for marital interface and spike-less interface was for her husband and close friends. For this reason, Lyzack respected her empress' wish.

    Esmeral finally came and Lyzack removed the toy and cuddled next to Esmeral, practically under her breasts. Lyzack nibbled and kissed Esmeral's belly as she pulled out a very small vibrator and tapped Esmeral's node with it. For Lyzack, it seemed her own desires were quelled the moment she put her hands on Esmeral and she couldn't help but admit that her real kink was seeing Esmeral brought to her knees and enjoying every second of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a reference to a short story by W.W. Jacobs “[The Monkey’s Paw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw)” where the moral of the story was that wishes granted by the monkey's paw come at a price. (Meaning you get your wish but in a very screwy way. But this chapter doesn’t seem screwy at all but wait until the next chapter. ;D)


	20. Some slight miscalculations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still aroused after indulging in Camien-style interface, Esmeral runs into her husband who wants to frag her too. Then Leozack finally makes it back to his room in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains m/f interfacing.
> 
> While, it _should've_ been part of the previous chapter, I decided to separate it so the first part could be its own standalone f/f scenario.

    Lyzack happily watched Esmeral recoil in ecstasy, though she was very anxious and tried to play it off. Esmeral finally noticed and asked, “What's…wrong now?”

    Lyzack didn't answer and looked away, which caused Esmeral to get up and tried to confront Lyzack about it. Esmeral managed to make brief eye-contact, only to notice her husband's reflection in Lyzack's eyes. Clutching her breasts, Esmeral turned around to see Deathsaurus sitting on the couch. It appeared he had been in the room for quite some time, admiring them from a distance, and making his presence as inoffensive as possible as to not disturb them.

    Moments earlier, he had suddenly woken up only to see that Esmeral was gone. At first he thought she was in the bathroom but then realized she had been gone too long. Normally, he wouldn't bother to look for her but his impending deal with the aliens had him worried since Solon was very upset about it. He first checked Solon's room and then made his way to Lyzack's room where he found them both fragging on the floor.

    Normally, he would've left and not said a word, but seeing his wife getting pleasured and enjoying every second of it captivated him too much that he had no choice but stake a seat and observe. Lyzack had noticed him enter the room but said nothing, since moments before Esmeral told her that she didn't want her husband to tease her about being dominated. She had hoped that Deathsaurus would leave, but he didn't and every passing moment made it awkward because she was worried about how her beloved Empress would react.

    Esmeral was speechless because Deathsaurus had seen a lot but exactly how much was anyone's guess.

    Wanting to break the silence, Deathsaurus said, “Let me help you up.”

    He extended his hand to help Lyzack get up first. Then he grabbed Esmeral by the shoulders to help her stand up. Deathsaurus' near-perfect stealth completely surprised her. She could only imagine what he would've done to her if she was his enemy. A mech that large had no business being so sneaky. He then grabbed both her breasts and sucked on both of her nipples at the same time. Overwhelmed by the sensation, of both her nipples rubbing against each other and the teeth on her husband's tongue tickling her, Esmeral managed to say, “You are too mean!”

    He made eye-contact with her, while still sucking on her breasts, to assert his dominance. She quickly looked away unable to handle his sensual and alluring gaze which clearly told her he wanted to interface. He was too unpredictable and she was 99% certain he was going to lift her off the ground and penetrate her on the spot as he held her so close to his body. Instead he let go of her breasts and said, “You need to learn some humility.”

    Her body trembled upon hearing his words. She knew him too well, this only meant that he planned to instill humility in her along with his seed.

    “Fine! Let's go!” she hissed, upset because she was embarrassed about her own intense arousal.

    “Alright but close your chest plating first and let's go,” scoffed Deathsaurus as he opened the door. He turned around and said to Lyzack, “Goodnight.”

    Esmeral still couldn't close her chest plating and Deathsaurus noticed right away since he stood by the door. Without a second thought he got behind her and pressed her nipples into her breasts in with his fingers.; his sharp claws dangerously close to her soft breasts.

    “You're not helping,” she whispered. Though the risk of him injuring her was very real and terrified her immensely, she was turned on by the danger.

    “Who said I wanted to help?” replied Deathsaurus as he sweetly kissed her finials. (At least his lips were soft.)

    She moved her head away and walked to her room as Deathsaurus walked closely behind her.

    Suddenly, he stopped and kepted her from moving forward. Tweaking her nipples and watching her squirm from the sensation he said, “You're walking strangely and it may be misinterpreted by the security systems. You need to spread your legs apart.”

    “Sorry but I can't do that, my love,” she replied sarcastically. “You're fondling me too much.”

    “Maybe this will help,” said Deathsaurus, who retracted his codpiece and slipped his hot, erect spike between her thighs and touching her valve. (At least the spike's plating was softer and smooth, unlike almost everything else about him.)

    Esmeral gasped and not wanting to think of how far Deathsaurus was planning to go with his teasing. Like his viciousness in the battlefield, he had a tendency to take things too far. In terms of interface and intimacy, Deathsaurus was always too bold and confident for her tastes. (He wasn't the type to hesitate about fragging in public and he'd definitely do it to prove a point – whatever that point could possibly be which depended on the situation.) Regardless, Esmeral had no idea what scared her so much; his confidence, how physically dangerous he was, or his unpredictability. However, he was a very sweet, honorable, and reasonable mech, who had helped her when she was all alone. Not to mention she was too attracted to him, just like everyone else seemed to be.

    They resumed their walk, but Deathsaurus was struggling to compose himself. It had been too long since his wife's thick, firm thighs squeezed and rubbed against his spike. Though he always prided himself as a strategist, this was a mistake. With each passing step, he was on the verge of cumming all over his wife's thighs and on the floor. And then, Esmeral would tease him about it, telling him it was his own fault (and she'd be absolutely correct).

    It didn't take long for them to arrive at their quarters. He let her go and went to the bedroom and lied down in bed. Esmeral followed him and curled up next to him. Feeling slight remorse, he said, "You need to learn how to lock the doors, this isn't Caminus."

    "And you need to learn how to knock," replied Esmeral.

    "I don't want to," said Deathsaurus, "it goes against my training because it violates the element of surprise."

    “That explains a lot of things I didn't even want to think about,” replied Esmeral as she reached over and firmly squeezed Deathsaurus' spike, in an attempt to surprise him.

    However, it didn't work. It was exactly what he wanted, except he miscalculated how aroused he was and ended up moaning instead of maintaining his silence.

    Since it was getting late, Esmeral climbed over her husband and carefully sat on his spike, making sure it went all the way into her valve. This time, she did managed to surprise him since was expecting more foreplay.

    As he thrusted into his wife, Deathsaurus said, “One of…one of these days, we're going to have some time for ourselves and do things right. I hate how it feels that we don't have…don't have enough time together anymore that isn't work.”

    “We…we can always take a break once we get to Tyrest,” said Esmeral, “We'd be paid well.”

    “Good point,” said Deathsaurus as and his wife came at once.

    Exhausted, both of them decided to transform into their beast modes and curled up next to each other, quickly falling asleep.

    Meanwhile, Leozack returned to his room. He would've gotten there sooner but he was fragged in just about every direction that he was horribly disoriented. For this reason, the rest of his teammates stayed at the loading docks. (But Leozack was determined to return to his room, as to not worry his sister, even though he probably should've texted her to save both of them the trouble. Having been onboard the Thunder Arrow for millions of years, Leozack still had no idea where he was on the Warworld.)

    As soon as he opened the door, he took a couple of steps back upon smelling the lingering scent of Esmeral's pheromones. Fortunately, it helped reduce his disorientation because he was immediately filled with fear, thinking he had walked in on the Empress and his sister. It became apparent that Esmeral was long gone, so Leozack walked into the bedroom and threw himself on the floor because he was too exhausted to make it to the bed.

    Lyzack woke up when she heard a thud and saw her brother passed out on the ground. She got a cushion and placed it under his head and then covered him with a blanket, before going back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I had lost steam on this but it was probably for the best. (I mustn't get too distracted from the scheming parts of this story!)
> 
> I felt like writing some "xeno" or at least "large monster boyfriend with cute tiny girlfriend" for the last couple of days. So I figured I'd roll with it and adjusted it for Deathsaurus and Esmeral...though she's not exactly tiny, just slightly smaller and much less bulky than her husband. Still, I'm pleasantly surprised it has worked out. (From my own searching, I've yet to find a satisfactory portrayal of Deathsaurus and Esmeral. Others I've found, seem to want to depict their marriage as troubled so that they'd be separated, therefore shippable with others. I found that off-putting since Esmeral seemed so happy to see Deathsaurus again. Obviously, these couple of chapters is just me taking things into my own hands, which doesn't quite make it so satisfactory because I wrote it and spoiled the pleasant surprise for myself.)
> 
> Due to these latest changes of narration, I revisited an earlier chapter  ([chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9733691/chapters/24810822)) just to keep everything consistent as it should be. 
> 
> I'll delete this add-on later, but there was supposed to be a combiner team orgy before. (Why Lyzack was aroused to begin with.) However, I don't have much energy to write porn, so I picked the f/f and m/f scenarios to concentrate on. They seemed more straightforward.


	21. An Inmodest Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The deal with the aliens is about to go d-w-n...down!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, there is NSFW dialogue in this chapter.
> 
> I've been having some writer's block with this story, but fortunately watching The Headmasters has inspired me with this and other ongoing/pending projects. (That series is great and I shouldn't have waited that long to watch it. I have missed out on so much.)

    Not too far off were the organic alien traders that Deathsaurus had arranged to deal with, aboard their own ship. They were large creatures, roughly the same size of an average Cybertronian. They had lilac-colored scaly skin and olive-colored frills, as well as large pointy teeth.

    Like the rest of their species, they were obsessed with body modification, to the point that many of them had additional appendages, such as extra limbs or tails. However, this culture-wide obsession caused multiple economic collapses since they traded and sold whatever they could for more mods. Eventually, they decided to sell their mercenary services to other races. However, they had a tendency to haggle the prices of their captured fugitives that eventually everyone in that particular star-system referred to them as “The Slavers”.

    This particular crew of Slavers was reasonably sized. It was their first interaction with Cybertronians and they had heard so much about them. The Slavers' second-in-command approached his captain and said to him, “Sir, I don't mean to question your orders, but so you think that maybe we should just cancel this deal? I have a bad feeling about it.”

    “Nonsense!” replied the captain, “The payoff will be very big, you'll see!”

    “But all this effort just for a single robot?” asked the second-in-command. “It's not even the good kind of robot, it's one of those killer robots that have been at war with each other since creation.”

    “When I took on this task, I was assured the robot in question is harmless because he's weaponless,” said the captain. “We're getting at $5 trillion if we bring it back alive. Or $15 trillion if it is alive and unharmed. Do you have any idea how this would affect our home if we succeed? Our planet will no longer be the most indebted in this star-system. We will be legends! Besides, if any others happened to be deactivated along the way, then we harvest whatever parts we can.”

    Suddenly, they received a video call from Deathsaurus and the captain answered it. On the screen they saw Deathsaurus, a large fearsome blue robot with a beautiful face that had four bright vermilion eyes. His majestic disposition evoked both fear and awe, which was worsened by his attractiveness. Happy that the Slavers answered his call, Deathsaurus cleared his throat to say the universal greeting, “ _Bah-weep-graaaaagnah wheep nini bong_!”

    “What did he say?” whispered the second-in-command, baffled by the nonsensical greeting that sounded terrifying with Deathsaurus’ voice.

    “I don’t know,” replied the captain with his hand over the microphone, “but if these ‘deformation robots’ address us as such, it means they don’t plan to kill us.” He spoke into the com, repeating the greeting while flashing a relaxed close-mouth smile.

    Delighted that the universal greeting worked, Deathsaurus said, “We are a day or so from our rendezvous point.” Deathsaurus focused the camera on the missles he planned to trade, making sure the Slavers had a good clear shot of the inventory, “I'd like to see the cargo.”

    The captain picked up his own com, asking for crew members to bring a single crate from the storage unit. Within a minute, a crew member, wearing a protective suit, arrived with a crate and opened it up to reveal the rare, pure nihonium crystals. Due to their radioactive and unpredictable nature, it was a quick viewing before closing up the crate again.

    Satisfied, Deathsaurus said, “Excellent! I can't wait! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. See you soon.” The video call ended and the Slavers were unable to find Deathsaurus' frequency.

    The crew member wearing the protective suit asked, “Wait, is that the $15 trillion robot? No wonder those Quintessons want him so badly. I'd shag that robot too, like _damn_.”

    With an awkward smile, both the captain and his second-in-command exchanged quick glances. Deathsaurus was not their target. Although there was a similar bounty for him but the payoff was much less, in comparison, due to how dangerous he was; making him more undesirable to the Quintessons – but it was still pretty generous. Their target was another Cybertronian who was much more beautiful. Only the captain and his second-in-command had seen him once before. Since then, the robot's beauty has haunted both their dreams and fantasies. They completely understood why the Quintessons were willing to pay so much for it. 

    “No,” replied the second-in-command shaking his head, as he motioned for the crate to be returned to storage. 

    “It’s another more beautiful robot.”

    “More beautiful?!” asked crew member, “That’s impossible! There’s no way something sexier than that blue smooth-talking space penguin could exist.”

    The captain, then showed him a photo of their true target on the screen. The crew member stared at the Cybertronian for several minutes before speaking, “Shit, man…he’s hot too. What the _hell_?! How is this possible?!”

    “Oh, these are their faction leaders,” said the captain as he showed them pictures of Optimus Prime and Megatron. “I don’t understand their beef though. It seemed like they were allies in overthrowing the evil regime but then turned against each other. Perhaps they couldn’t agree which one would rule their home-world and they didn’t want to rule as equals. This is what their millions of years-old war is about.”

    The crew member was in more disbelief, unable to process an adequate reply.

    The second-in-command said, “They were once domesticated by the Quintessons, who somehow thought it was a good idea to keep the weaponized traits, instead of breeding them out.”

    “These robots reproduce?” asked the crew member. “How? They don’t have any females or least I’ve never seen any, it seems like they're all males. I thought they were just made each other in automated factories.”

    With a devious smile, the captain said, “The Quintessons turned their entire species hermaphroditic with their carefully calculated experiments. They intended this to be ‘efficient’ since any two of these 'deformation robots' could mate with each other but I consider it ‘kinky’. And our target is apparently the epitome of this evolution; he is everything the Quintessons' ancestors hoped to accomplish. I know it's tempting to want to haggle a higher price for him, once we succeed, but we mustn't. Knowing how those Quintessons are, we will lose everything if we even dare."

    The crew member was more intrigued than he wanted to admit. (He was entertaining the thought of rawed by their pressurized penises but since they also had vaginas, he had no idea what he wanted to do anymore. He was overwhelmed by the options.) The captain and the second-in-command continued their conversation with the crew member, who hurried to tell the others about what he had learned.

    The Slavers had an idea of what to expect from the Cybertronians. After all, the Quintesson emissaries they spoke to, told them everything they needed to know. What they learned was that the 4 million (or was it 6 million) year-old war between the factions was entirely the Quintesson's fault. The way they programmed the Cybertronians' ancestors to have poor aim and only fire lasers at each other, it was the reason it even lasted that long besides their immortality and desire to find new ways to repair their friends.

    However, their target didn't have lasers, bullets, or bombs of any kind because he was intended to be a harmless loving pet. The Slavers were familiar with the target and “harmless” was not a word they could associate with him. In fact, much of the crew was dreading the moment they would finally come in contact with their target the so-called “loving pet”. As lovely and innocent as their target appeared to be, he had a sinister aura at times. This was the reason the sight of him haunted their dreams because one look into his doleful honey-colored eyes and they knew their mission was doomed.

    Not wanting to dwell on their hopeless situation, the Slavers decided to make another call. This time it was answered by a visor-wearing minibot with friendly blue eyes. Since the Slavers were determined to capture their target, they used all the leads they could to get closer to him. Like Deathsaurus, they also used the universal greeting on minibot.

    The minibot smiled and said, “Good, you made contact with Deathsaurus. You know the deal, you capture him and his crew for me and I will see if the chief justice will honor your request for a private conference with him.”

    “Yes, please,” said the captain, “we have much to discuss in regards to wanting protection for our home.”

    “I look forward to your success,” said the minibot, “but he warned, Deathsaurus and his crew are all formidable warriors. However, his crew has one weakness and that is their love for their leader. So if you manage to gravely injure and capture Deathsaurus, then the rest will do whatever you want if you promise to not take his life.” The minibot hung up the call.

    The second-in-command looked at his captain, who had turned pale. He could no longer hide the impending feelings of doom he felt but he was a man of his word. The last thing he would ever do was to back out of the contract. His planet desperately needed the bounty from capturing that lovely doleful-eyed mechanical devil. He muttered to himself, "The payoff will be very big, you'll see!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Deformation Robots" is how I've seen Japanese Transformers figures being described as in product descriptions (for both Takara and 3rd Party toys, as well as in knock-offs and bootlegs.)
> 
> The most difficult part about writing this chapter was figuring out which alien race they would deal with. Then I asked [Aleaiactaest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Aleaiactaest) for suggestions of canon aliens...specifically, which are most likely to want to bone a TF. And obviously, the answer was the [Slavers](http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Slavers) from the Drift mini-series because they had to be boning Lockdown.
> 
> As for the rest about body modification being an inherent part of their culture and their crumbling economy, that's just filler I made up for the sake of ~*+*~æsthetique~*+*~


	22. A chat with customer service.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A frighted and stranded minibot tries to call his superiors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyrest Accord operators can either be civilians from Tyrest and Kalis, specially trained to handle calls or higher-level employees who are on desk duty. (Desk duty is usually for injured employees because the chief justice doesn't accept misconduct and wouldn't hesitate to fire anyone over misconduct, after a thorough investigation.)

    Meanwhile, a black and while blue-visored minibot sat in one of the Slaver’s hab-suites, anxiously twirling his thumbs. (Actually, he was barely a minibot by definition. He was taller than most minibots but much shorter than average.) He suddenly jumped off the bed and ran over to where his phone was charging. It was at 28% and he decided to call for help. He barely opened his “contacts” app on the phone and the battery went right back down to 12%. Feeling confined, he opened the door and saw the Slavers carrying the crate of nihonium back to the storage. Though they wore protective suits to protect themselves from radiation, the crate had a hole. Taking a chance, the minibot approached them and stuck his hand inside the hole in the crate. Since he was so small the Slavers failed to notice him, and he quickly darted back to his room.

    The minibot climbed back on his bed and pulled out his tablet. It had a large hole on it because it was the only thing between his frame and his spark chamber when he got shot during a mission. The minibot looked at the nihonium crystal and the hole on the tablet. Seeing they were the same size, he shoved the crystal into the tablet and turned it on. It worked. However, his tablet began to lag due to the sudden surge of unread messages notifications. Though this would’ve normally overwhelmed him, he was relieved. After the tablet seemed to run like normal, the minibot checked his inbox and saw three recent messages from his employer. The first was a standard message telling him that his paycheck was directly sent his bank account. The second was an audio message in Primal Vernacular, which he did not understand. Th third was another audio message in Neocybex it said, “Please do not make deals with organics at this time.”

    The minibot’s spark sank and his fans accelerated as he felt uneasy chills go throughout his body. Fortunately, for him the message was only a day old. Since his tablet doubled as a phone, he called his employer just as he had tried to do before. (He used the special hotline that was only for employee inquiries.) The automated system instructed him to press numbers relevant to his concerns and since he was anxious, Cerebros had to let the automated system repeat itself before selecting the correct number. The gentle Rustic lithophone music he heard while on hold did nothing to calm his nerves.

    An operator replied a couple of minutes later, “Good afternoon, my name is Tyrest, how may I assist you today?”

    “Please, I need to speak to the chief justice, this is important!” said the minibot anxiously, not realizing he was speaking directly to the chief justice himself, even though his voice sounded familiar. (Up until that point, he had only heard the chief justice speak with a posh Iaconian accent recorded in sub-par quality. Personally, he found the audio messages annoying.)

    “Alright, I can forward a message to him,” replied Tyrest, “and based on your phone number, you are Cerebros, correct?”

    “Yes,” replied Cerebros, “Let me just say that I’m so sorry that I couldn’t call sooner. My phone is dying and a violator broke my tablet which I have just managed repair it somehow. And that’s why I didn’t know about the recent update to not deal with organics. They approached me, an Enforcer, with an offer to help capture Deathsaurus and I just couldn’t refuse.”

    “Understandable, but you must be careful about deals that seem too good to be true,” replied Tyrest as he transcribed their conversation and read where Cerebro’s exact coordinates were. He was quite far from Cybertron, in a star system mostly settled by organics.

    “The organics told me that Deathsaurus approached them with an offer to trade weapons in exchange for nihonium crystals," said Cerebros.

    Tyrest chuckled. “You mean the chaos emeralds?”

    “Yeah,” said Cerebros, slightly unnerved by the operator's chuckle. 

    "He is a shameful mech," replied Tyrest, "selling out the safety of our people, just to fill his own belly with rare and expensive sweets." Tyrest looked over and saw the device information from the tablet, which was being downloaded while he spoke. Its battery stopped working at around the same time Cerebros claimed it was damaged but now was powered by an unknown source. "I've heard he was seduced into the Decepticons' faction with promises of power. Those who seek power are generally of a selfish nature and as you can see, it makes perfect sense."

    Something about the operator's voice was oddly reassuring. Calmer, it didn't take Cerebros long to suspect he was more than likely speaking with the chief justice himself. The operator sounded just like him but more laid back and casual. Thinking fast, Cerebros, blurted out, "I hope it's not too much to ask but I also wanted to know why the Tyrest Accord never intervened when Garrus-9 was being overrun with Decepticons and of the whereabouts of its warden, Fortress Maximus."

    "Garrus-9 was the Autobots' responsibility and they chose to do nothing, even after multiple notifications in regard to the matter," replied Tyrest coldly. Since many of the prisoners were also Tyrest Accord violators, he didn't think it was important for his enforcers to intervene. As far as he was concerned, them off-lining each other was doing everyone a favor. Tyrest had a bad feeling about Fortress Maximus but wasn't exactly sure as to why. "As for Fortress Maximus, he was found practically ripped to pieces and in a coma. The Autobots transferred him to a medical outpost that was equipped to deal with his injuries. The name of the facility remains classified to this day. However, I feel this is a code-word for 'Max is dead' or 'We sent Max to the cheapest hospital imaginable because he's not worth our resources since he failed to prevent the Decepticons from taking over Garrus-9'."

    Tyrest's brutal honestly hit Cerebros like a sledgehammer to the crotch. Cerebros' eyes began to water and he stammered, “M-max...no...”

    Unfortunately, Tyrest overheard Cerebros wail and became overwhelmed with guilt. He didn't mean to upset Cerebros, especially by causing him the emotional pain of losing a loved one and not knowing whether or not they're still alive. Particularly, since he was very familiar with that feeling because it haunted and upset him more often than he'd care to admit. Fortunately for Cerebros, Tyrest quickly made up his mind to help Cerebros escape the situation.

    Although Tyrest personally wanted to see Deathsaurus with his Destrons captured and sentenced to death, the well-being of his employee was more important. If he were in Cerebros' position, he'd want someone to help him device an escape plan and receive little or no reprimand for the incident.

    “These are direct orders from the chief justice,” said Tyrest, after a brief pause, “Gather as much evidence as you can carry, by this I mean take some of the chaos emeralds or the nihonium crystals, whichever term you prefer. When you have them, call back and give us your location so you we can space-bridge you back to Luna-1, understood?”

    “Yes sir,” nodded Cerebros.

    “Good luck and see you soon,” replied Tyrest, as he was getting ready to hang up. Remembering that he had to comply with the strict rules of serving as an operator, he quickly added, “if you’ve chosen to take the survey, please stay on the line and thank you for contacting the Tyrest Accord. Have a wonderful day!”

    Cerebros was relieved but also unsure if he dialed in the option to take the survey. He waited on the line and sure enough, he had agreed to take the survey. It was simple and asked him to dial the number he rated the service. Since he was so relieved that the chief justice wasn’t mad at him, Cerebros gave the operator high-scores and then said he was “a literal angel” before hanging up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this AU, Tyrest is very empathetic which makes him good _and_ bad at his job. (Good because it "forces" him to be a decent boss who'd never exploit his employees, and bad because he constantly breaks rules, using his position to help/harm others.) But then this is because he's intended to be morally gray. In MTMTE, he didn't care for anyone else but himself, so yeah this is like the opposite of that but also the same because he is still corrupt.
> 
> I originally intended for this concept to be terrifying. That the only reason Tyrest answered was because Cerebros was flagged as a delinquent for failing to report his status. And the fact that the chief justice was able to gather hardware data wirelessly to prove or disprove Cerebros' claims of experiencing technical difficulties. All of his employees have special phones or tablets issued for them to use and they all come with full galaxy-wide internet access that is free of charge for them. However, they are also bugged too and can record what employees are up to at random times. This is obviously stated in the fine-print of the contracts they sign in order to maintain employment within the organization.
> 
> And if you didn't figure it out already, this story isn't a serious one because I'm trying to put as many memes in it as I possibly can. Though I am curious as to whether or not the memes will be identifiable in the future.


	23. Act of Penitence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cerebros attempts to correct his mistake just before things get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nihonium crystals have like a citrusy smell to them. So if you were Cerebros, you'd just look for something that smells strongly of lemon...or maybe orange.

    Cerebros took a deep breath and left his hab-suite. He had been on the Slavers’ ship long-enough to memorize the movements of their security cameras and had left the precise moment the camera had turned away. (He had only been on board for at least 3 hours.) When he arrived at the storage facility, he typed in the code he had seen the Slavers type in and entered it. He followed his nose and located the crate full of crystals.

    As he walked through the storage room, he noticed that many shelves were filled with what appeared to be robotic body parts and jars filled with preservatives that had organs inside of them. But something verdant caught his eye in the corner. He stepped away from the crate to investigate and found a poster with a familiar Cybertronian pictured on it. He recognized the mech immediately; it was the beautiful shy receptionist from Luna-1. Cerebros had spoken to him many times and had grown fond of him for emotionally supporting him over his inability to rescue Fortress Maximus. Curious, Cerebros translated the poster which was written in two languages; the common language of that star system and in Quintesson.

    Cerebros nearly had a stroke when he realized the poster was a bounty notice for the receptionist. (As far as he knew, the receptionist had never hurt anyone and he had to have had a clean background check in order to work on behalf of the Tyrest Accord.) The poster read, in both languages, “The Quintesson Imperial Magistrate seeks to attain this lovely deformation robot for his personal collection.” Then it proceeded to describe the receptionist in objectifying terms, such as saying that he had, “nimble paws”, “delicate wings”, “a seductive gaze”, and “soft kissable lips (upper + lower + left + right)”, to name a few. There was no denying, the Quintessons wanted to have sex with him and that made Cerebros sick, not just because it involved a fellow Cybertronian but because it was someone he knew and liked. He was more determined than ever to collect the crystals he was ordered to collect, despite feeling immense guilt for almost putting the receptionist in danger.

    Since he had already stuck his hand inside the hole in the crate, he did it again and pulled out several fistfuls of crystals and stuffed them in his subspace. However, he knew Deathsaurus was a dangerous mech to cross, despite being the most honest Decepticon merchant. Deathsaurus would know something was immediately wrong if the crate was lighter than expected. Cerebros pulled out his tablet. He used an x-ray app to calculate the weight of the crate. Nearby, he found some bricks and placed them inside the crate until the crate was of a reasonable weight. But he realized that the hole looked suspicious even though he didn’t make it. Since nihonium crystals were highly-reactive, he was unable to solder the crate.

    Cerebros took the bounty poster as evidence. He folded it up and placed it inside a large envelope, to show it to the chief justice. However the receptionist who Cerebros always met with, always insisted on seeing any documents or evidence that was to be handed to the chief justice. He also seemed like the sensitive-type; the contents of the bounty poster would upset and deeply disturb him. The last thing Cerebros wanted was for the chief justice to regret having rescuing him because he upset the receptionist – an innocent civilian.

    He waited for a bit, before leaving the storage room, unseen by the cameras. Once he entered his hab-suite, he called back the Tyrest Accord. But this time, the phone call was automatically rerouted to the chief justice’s personal phone.

    “Ultra Magnus,” said the chief justice in his formal Iaconian accent, which had cracked slightly. “Are you alright? It’s been months since I last received contact from you. Would you like for me to space-bridge you here immediately?”

    Cerebros gasped, before stammering, “I…it’s me, Cerebros. I got the nihonium crystals I was ordered to get…and yes please.”

    Shocked by the quick reply and the fact he forgot to check who the call was from, Tyrest replied, “Let me access your location. I found it. Let’s see…” Tyrest checked his laptop and opened an app that controlled his space-bridge. He entered the tablet’s location and the space-bridge immediately activated. “…the space-bridge should appear momentarily.” Tyrest tried to put his phone on speaker but he was so embarrassed that he called Cerebros the wrong name and spoke without a voice filter that he accidentally hung up on him.

    As soon as the space-bridge opened up next to him, Cerebros grabbed his belongings, ran inside it, and appeared in Luna-1 moments later. He was so shaken from the ordeal and relieved that he was back on Luna-1, he didn’t even remember that the chief justice called him the wrong name and sounded exactly like the operator he has spoken to earlier. Some legislators were waiting for him and escorted him to the briefing room so he could speak to the chief justice. (By escorted him, I meant they picked up Cerebros and gently cradled him to the briefing room, because he was small like a baby and they didn’t want to risk stepping on him.)

    Upon arriving at the briefing room, Cerebros saw that only he and the legislators were there. The receptionist, who would normally already be waiting for him, was absent. Without the receptionist’s comforting aura, Cerebros began to be consumed by his own anxiety. However, as far as he was concerned, perhaps the receptionist was running a bit late since this was an emergency meeting. A few minutes later, the receptionist arrived, more frazzled than usual.

    The receptionist carried a box with him and said to Cerebros, “Please remove your SD cards from your phone and tablet, and place your devices here for repair.”

    The apprehension in the receptionist’s voice concerned Cerebros. He tried to remove the cards, but did so slowly because his hands were shaking from his reddened energon. Meanwhile, a legislator took the box and another helped the receptionist to his seat. Cerebros looked up and saw that the receptionist clearly looked like he had finished crying. His face was swollen and his eyes glistened from his tears. Concerned, he wanted to ask the receptionist what was wrong but at the same time, he knew that would upset him more.

    Wanting to break the silence, Cerebros said, “I have the nihonium crystals.” He got up and reached into his subspace. A nearby legislator grabbed a plastic bag and opened it, so Cerebros could clean out his subspace. The receptionist seemed somewhat relieved. Though the amount collected seemed small, it was a lot for a minibot. Finally, Cerebros pulled out the envelope and reluctantly handed it over to the receptionist. The first thing the receptionist did was open the envelope. Upon realizing what had happened, Cerebros said, “That is for the chief justice!”

    The receptionist paused, his distraught expression quickly changed to a more stern one. “I must inspect it.”

    “Please don’t!” begged Cerebros, “It is very bad. It might even make you cry and won’t let you sleep for days.”

    “It doesn’t matter,” replied the receptionist coldly. “I have an obligation to inspect evidence, even if it traumatizes me in some way. This is my job. But I appreciate your concern.” He pulled out the bounty poster from the envelope and unfolded it. Upon realizing what was depicted, his expression remained neutral though Cerebros could sense a dark shadow of vengeful rage over it.

    Cerebros covered his face. He had worried that the receptionist would be sad over seeing the poster, but never could’ve imagined that he’d be rightfully furious about it. Seeing him so angry and displeased frightened Cerebros, making it the first time he ever felt unsafe around the receptionist or the legislators, who quickly picked up on his anger. But the feelings of rage were brief, since the receptionist thought Cerebros mistook his rage as being directed at him, instead of the Quintessons, which he already had a deep-seated hatred for.

    Taking a deep breath, the receptionist said, “I had foreseen something like this a few days ago. The stars warned me of Quintessons plotting against me in an unsavory manner. I had no idea what the stars meant by ‘unsavory’ but now I know.” Seeing that Cerebros had calmed down slightly, he added, “As for you, you will be moved to patrol duty on Kalis while this matter is being investigated. But first, I suggest you go to one of the various hot-springs here on Luna-1. That way you can relax with a warm bath but also, the heat of the hot-springs will destroy any tracking devices that could’ve been implanted to you by those organics. Understood?”

    “Y…yes sir,” replied Cerebros, who had left with a legislator that took him to one of the hot-springs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Reddened Energon" is supposed to be "adrenaline". Think of it as his body metabolizing the energon differently just so it would be like [red energon](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Red_Energon) instead of pink energon to help with his fight/flight response.
> 
> Yeah…even I think Cerebros was let off too easy. But then, this story seems like it should’ve been been rated T if it wasn’t for all that pointless smut filler.


	24. A Cruel Mastermind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Slavers discuss their plans, _and then_ have to change plans again due to some unforeseen circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to [“Zumba” by Don Omar](https://youtu.be/pu5PZugNiJU) while writing. Not really the song anyone would pick for this chapter, in both the tone and subject, but overall it fits the aesthetic of the story.
> 
> Also, I'm still not over the fact that AU!Tyrest, the one described in this story, is extremely canon-compliant (due to the events of [Lost Light #22](https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Crucible_\(Part_4\):_The_Return_of_the_King)). He was intended to be canon-divergent in terms of personality and behavior. So enjoy this chapter in which he is crudely described. X3

    Meanwhile, the Slavers had no idea that Cerebros was gone. Mostly because Cerebros was so small and benign that they usually forgot he was there. They were also distracted by an urgent call that they received from the Quintesson Magistrate’s emissary. The Slavers had gathered in the briefing room to listen to it.

    “We have some interesting news to report,” said the Quintesson. “My superiors have hired another team of appraisers. His value has changed because he’s not a Voyager Class robot, as we initially thought. Turns out we miscalculated his size; he’s actually a Leader Class robot and this increases his value. Most Leader Class robots are creatures who live and breath destruction. But this one is gentle; his heart is as big as the sea and because of this, he dislikes war and seeing innocents suffer. Sure this unpleasant weakness devalues him by 0.28% but he is also a rare Cybertronian Judge. That makes him more adorable by about 23.7% and that compensates for the aforementioned decrease.”

    The Slavers smiled and nodded to one another.

    Seeing that the organics didn’t quite understand what he said, the Quintesson added, “Our appraisers state that the target is actually worth around $7.5 trillion at most, no longer the $15 trillion we previously estimated.”

    “Why?” asked the Slaver captain, annoyed by the decrease.

    The Quintesson grabbed a photo of Tyrest and pointed at his forehead. “These are not spots. They’re self-inflicted wounds, the target has bored into his skin because he has dermatillomania.”

    The captain gasped. “You said he was harmless and now you’re telling us that he's crazy?!”

    “There is an 83.4% chance that his injuries are the direct result of severe separation anxiety,” replied the Quintesson. “This means there is a 98.475% chance that the target may not survive capture. The anxiety will surely kill him because his systems will be unable to process this additional stress. The risk was always high and that is why we performed more re-calculations, only to confirm that it was higher than initially calculated.”

    An angry crew-member cried, “So you’re telling us we wasted our friggin’ time trying to catch this useless robot who’s going to die?!”

    “There is a 1.525% chance he’d survive,” replied the Quintesson. “Also, pets are universally useless, so I don’t understand why that’s a problem now. We informed you all that he is a pet-type; his uselessness should’ve been expected.”

    “That doesn’t explain the risk of dying!” cried another crew-member.

    “Yes it does,” replied the Quintesson. “Pet Cybertronians were bred to have a malfunctioning battle computer, which is what makes them harmless. Since they cannot defend themselves, they’re nervous all the time which compels them to cuddle to feel ‘safe’ and that is a very cute trait. You must keep in mind that these pets are almost intellectually equal to us Quintessons. That is why this anxious trait was bred into them, as a safety precaution; to make them unable to function when they're cornered. And of course, if they get too anxious they'll die.”

    The second-in-command shot a quick worried glance at one of his subordinates, who didn’t seem to understand what was going on other than the Quintessons had tricked them by lying to them about Tyrest’s exact value. He grew more uncomfortable when the emissary claimed that Tyrest was as smart as a Quintesson. This revelation meant there was a good chance that Tyrest could figure out that the Slavers are trying to trap him and plot against them out of retaliation. From what he heard, Chief Justice Tyrest, author of the Tyrest Accord, was a mech obsessed with revenge and for this reason, this Slaver refused to believe that he had a gentle heart. He had long suspected that this was a doomed mission and this latest development only further proved his gut-instincts correct.

    Without saying a word, the doubtful second-in-command stood up and went to look for Cerebros. His captain noticed him leave and grew furious but he had no choice but to remain calm as he continued speaking the Quintesson Magistrate's emissary. The second-in-command had a difficult time remembering where Cerebros was staying, but he was overcome with the stress. The search for the minibot seemed to last way too long but he eventually found his room. He knocked on the door but Cerebros obviously could not reply. Frustrated, the second-in-command used his master key and opened the door, only to find that the room was empty. Cerebros had cleared out everything. Not wanting to panic, he hurried to the security room to check the cameras, but he was stopped by several of his crew-members who had exited the briefing room after the meeting had concluded.

    "The captain needs to speak with you," said one of the crew-members.

    Without thinking, the second-in-command hissed, “The Tyrest Accord enforcer has disappeared!” 

    The crew-member cried, “This cannot be happening! Our only chance to catch that sexy angel robot is gone. What will we do? Everyone is counting on us.”

    “What if we give the Quintessons, Deathsaurus?” said another crew-member. “The enforcer is gone but we still have the equipment to capture Deathsaurus, who also happens to have beautiful wings. He just needs to be green and have an orange face, and would be an excellent substitute for the angel.”

    “His face was orange?” asked another crew member.

    “Yes,” said the captain. “Their faces are the same color as their genitals. I’m sure you saw that angel’s plump orange-wedge orange pussy, so his face was exactly that shade.”

    The crew-member who asked the question began to reevaluate his entire life at that moment, as did the second-in-command. For the former, he questioned every single fetish he ever had. As for the latter, he grew increasingly disturbed by the worsening situation and the fact that Tyrest was clearly an alluring mechanical angel of death.

    Taking a deep breath, the second-in command said, “I don’t think it's a good idea to chase after that robot or his sweet delicious pussy. The enforcer's disappearance is an omen of misfortune. We will be doomed, if we dare proceed.”

    The captain approached his second-in-command and slapped him. The crew-members all went deathly silent. The second-in-command rubbed his reddened cheek and in that instant, he ripped off his badge and threw it at the captain’s face. Without saying a word, he turned his back on everyone and walked away. Angry, the captain said, "Anyone else feel like running?"

    A two crew-members went after the second-in-command. The captain observed them and snarled, "Cowardly bastards." Nonchalantly, he handed the badge to the crew-member who suggested they give Deathsaurus to the Quintessons.

    Meanwhile, the former second-in-command and his two companions went to their rooms and cleared everything out. They followed the former second-in-command to the hangar and boarded a small, emergency shuttle. Since the shuttle was small and weak, it would take them back to their home planet in two days, rather than two hours like the main ship. There was no sense in saying goodbye to the others, they were all dead to them.

    The captain and his remaining crew, went back to the briefing room to revise their strategy. Fortunately for them, three less crew-members made no difference to them. They had state of the art equipment given to them by the Quintessons for the capture. Obviously, the Quintessons knew how to restrain Cybertronians. They had domesticated them for eons. The only thing they had to worry about was if they had enough paint to color Deathsaurus in Tyrest’s colors; though a touch of yellow was enough to turn blue a little green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ultra Magnus and Fortress Maximus are more "gentle" than Tyrest. (Especially Ultra Magnus because the hardships he has endured have not hardened his heart.) The difference is that the other two can defend themselves and Tyrest cannot. Because of this, Tyrest is more desirable/valuable to Quintessons.
> 
> Not to spoil, but the "cruel mastermind" referred to in the chapter title is actually me because I somehow turn light-hearted stories grim or vice versa.


End file.
